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Generative AI will accelerate the delivery of a more humanized journey that feels personable and interactive
2023 was when generative AI captured the world’s attention, and millions of people and businesses raced to explore the technology’s potential. From software coding to audio transcriptions to improved chatbot performance, generative AI proved to be a startlingly powerful technology, albeit one that’s still in its infancy. CX leaders understand that generative AI will become increasingly effective, and soon it will be so thoroughly integrated into the customer experience that support teams will work in ways that could only have been imagined a decade ago.
While generative AI harbors vast potential across industries and applications, in CX it will drive hyper-personalization, and it will help businesses offer more humanized and personable interactions. That’s exactly what customers expect and welcome—they’ve made it increasingly clear that they want businesses to use the mountains of personal data they possess to offer warm, personalized experiences.
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![](./assets/images/pill_headers-2.d7adf2abb66a.png)
Generative AI will accelerate the delivery of a more humanized journey that feels personable and interactive
2023 was when generative AI captured the world’s attention, and millions of people and businesses raced to explore the technology’s potential. From software coding to audio transcriptions to improved chatbot performance, generative AI proved to be a startlingly powerful technology, albeit one that’s still in its infancy. CX leaders understand that generative AI will become increasingly effective, and soon it will be so thoroughly integrated into the customer experience that support teams will work in ways that could only have been imagined a decade ago.
While generative AI harbors vast potential across industries and applications, in CX it will drive hyper-personalization, and it will help businesses offer more humanized and personable interactions. That’s exactly what customers expect and welcome—they’ve made it increasingly clear that they want businesses to use the mountains of personal data they possess to offer warm, personalized experiences.
So are CX leaders and their teams listening? As Zendesk discovered, the answer is a resounding yes. Seventy percent of CX leaders say that generative AI has led their organizations to take a step back and re-evaluate their entire customer experience. Right now those leaders and their teams are in exploration mode, conducting wide ranging experiments in how generative AI might be used to provide more personalized and satisfying experiences for their customers.
70% of CX leaders plan to integrate generative AI into many of their touchpoints in the next two years
That said, with every new technology comes uncertainty and stress. Sixty-two percent of CX leaders attest to their teams feeling pressure to use generative AI. But that stress is offset by the vast potential of the technology, specifically in how it promises to enable companies to offer faster, conversational, and more personable experiences to customers. And as we’ve seen over the past six years, customers are demanding those personalized experiences: they want the companies they patronize to truly understand them, to offer interactions that feel honest, informed, and friendly.
But can generative AI help businesses provide the kind of warm, human service that feels like interactions with local, family-owned businesses? More than two-thirds of CX organizations think that it will help their business provide that warmth and familiarity, even if they serve millions of customers.
One of the key ways generative AI will help companies get there is by improving the efficiency of agents. Seventy percent of CX leaders believe generative AI is making every digital customer interaction more efficient, from search functions to voice assistants.
Aspects of customer-facing touchpoints CX leaders anticipate being heavily influenced by generative AI in the next two years:
Chat-based customer support
Email communications with customers
Search functionality
Voice-based interactions
“I really believe that there’s a balance between empathy and efficiency where there can be an excellent result that meets the needs of the business but also meets the needs of the team that’s working on the front lines with the customers.”
Emily Sarver, Vice President of Customer Experience
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That expectation of increased agent efficiency is mirrored by what consumers told Zendesk: 59 percent believe that generative AI will completely change the way they interact with companies in the next two years, and for those who have already experienced the technology first-hand, that number jumps to 75 percent.
What do these data points mean for businesses? It’s clear that they should continue their experiments with the technology, with an eye on implementing generative AI tools directly into their customer experiences and related agent tools. Fifty-six percent of CX leaders are already exploring new generative AI vendors for CX, a figure that is sure to rise as the technology’s implications become inescapable.
“I really believe that there’s a balance between empathy and efficiency where there can be an excellent result that meets the needs of the business but also meets the needs of the team that’s working on the front lines with the customers.”
Emily Sarver, Vice President of Customer Experience
![](./assets/images/lovevery.e783fa4f8323.png)
![](./assets/images/zendesk-mini-spot-headset.37e515669954.png)
That expectation of increased agent efficiency is mirrored by what consumers told Zendesk: 59 percent believe that generative AI will completely change the way they interact with companies in the next two years, and for those who have already experienced the technology first-hand, that number jumps to 75 percent.
What do these data points mean for businesses? It’s clear that they should continue their experiments with the technology, with an eye on implementing generative AI tools directly into their customer experiences and related agent tools. Fifty-six percent of CX leaders are already exploring new generative AI vendors for CX, a figure that is sure to rise as the technology’s implications become inescapable.