Artificial Intelligence (AI) is fast becoming a foundational element for delivering the empathetic, personalized experiences that today’s customers and employees expect. It’s also a crucial asset for organizations that want to stay ahead in a constantly shifting competitive landscape.
by Ginger Conlon
Seventy percent of customer experience (CX) leaders recognize AI as a business imperative, according to the Genesys report “Customer experience in the age of AI,” which surveyed 1,000 CX leaders worldwide. More than one-quarter say AI is already critical to their CX operations, and 43% expect it to be essential within the next three years.
The message is clear: Whether you’re just starting with AI in CX or expanding its role in your customer and employee experience operations, now’s the time to build out your strategy to optimize AI’s impact.
The following four tactics, drawn from our report, can help you harness AI effectively to benefit your customers and employees, as well as your overall business.
1. Pinpoint and Prioritize High-Impact AI Opportunities
Two-thirds of CX leaders report having a clear roadmap for AI adoption. However, many are still missing opportunities to unlock the technology’s full potential. For example, only 20% of organizations are currently leveraging sentiment and empathy analysis. Of those, fewer than half are using AI to power these capabilities. This leaves significant room for early adopters to gain an edge over competitors.
Evaluate where AI is already embedded in your CX processes and identify key areas for improvement and expansion. You might find that AI is already deployed in pockets around your organization, providing additional opportunities to expand your footprint into CX.
Additionally, consider AI applications that directly enhance both customer and employee experiences, such as predictive routing, customer journey management, and agent copilots. Many organizations underutilize technologies — especially AI-powered versions, presenting a clear path to differentiation for those that prioritize them.
2. Set Specific, Measurable Goals
It’s not enough to adopt AI for the sake of innovation — clear goals must guide your strategy. Sixty percent of CX leaders expect AI to increase customer loyalty and lifetime value for their organization, but achieving these outcomes requires detailed planning and specific success metrics.
Define what success looks like for your AI initiatives upfront. This should include traditional metrics like customer satisfaction, average handling time, and cost to serve. But it also should encompass expanded measures that capture the broader business impact, such as revenue growth and customer lifetime value.
By linking AI outcomes directly to business performance, you can align expectations across the organization and track ROI more effectively. You’ll also make strides toward gaining organization-wide alignment that CX is a critical function.
3. Elevate Your Data Strategy
AI is only as powerful as the data it’s built on, so data quality and governance should be top priorities. A robust data strategy enables you to make AI-driven decisions with confidence, while also positioning you to address compliance, privacy, and ethical concerns proactively.
Ensure your data is clean, well-structured, and aligned with ethical standards. And recognize that this is an ongoing process.
According to the report findings, 69% of CX leaders have a plan for deploying AI ethically, with 41% adopting formal AI ethics policies. This not only ensures responsible use of AI, but also builds trust with customers and employees, all of which are critical to long-term success.
Currently, only 37% of leaders say their organization is proactively communicating how they use AI-related data. Transparency in how AI is deployed and how customer data is managed is a key differentiator — and another way to build trust and stand apart from competitors.
4. Address Concerns Proactively Among Customers and Employees
AI can spark concerns, particularly around transparency for customers and job security for employees. To maximize AI’s benefits, it’s crucial to address these concerns head-on with clear communication strategies.
For customers, proactive communication is essential. For example, 63% of CX leaders are making sure customers know when they’re interacting with a bot. Similarly, 63% say their organization ensures that customers can easily reach a human agent to address their issue.
For employees, emphasize how AI will augment their roles, not take their jobs. Two-thirds of CX leaders are proactively addressing employee concerns, while 62% are using AI to improve the employee experience by reducing training times, enhancing training quality, and shortening interaction handling times.
To secure organizational buy-in, it’s essential to articulate both the financial and operational value of AI initiatives to the C-suite and other top executives. Over half of CX leaders expect improved financial performance through AI, and 83% believe it will serve as a key differentiator for their organization in the near future.
Ensuring AI’s Impact
By focusing on these four strategies — identifying AI’s high-impact areas, setting clear goals, strengthening your data foundation, and proactively addressing stakeholder concerns — you can move beyond the AI hype and unlock measurable value for your organization.
