Contextual AI Drives Success

The contribution made by artificial intelligence to the customer experience often leads to disappointment on the customer side. Many applications are superficial and fail to understand the context. The results of a CX report provide an exclusive preview of what the next stage of development will look like.

Artificial intelligence (AI) can do pretty much everything that marketers and salespeople strive for: from hyper-personalization to seamless communication in customer service, these tools open up countless opportunities to improve the customer experience (CX). However, even companies that are pioneers in the field of AI are finding it difficult to exploit the potential of smart applications in such a way that the result is a truly satisfying customer experience. This sobering conclusion is drawn from a recent study by software company Zendesk on CX trends for the coming year 2026. More than 11,000 people from 22 countries were surveyed, including more than 600 from Germany.

Customer Service as a Testing Ground for AI

Customer service not only reveals how mature the AI functions used really are, but also highlights where there is a particularly urgent need for action: according to 85 percent of CX managers, a single unresolved issue is enough to scare customers away. Speed and empathy have become the decisive yardstick. Tom Eggemeier, CEO of Zendesk, knows what companies need to offer now and in the future:

The best solutions lie in linking past interactions with current customer intent to anticipate the next step and put contextual intelligence into practice.

AI Agents with Long-Term Memory

This assumption is in line with customer expectations:

• 69 percent of consumers surveyed worldwide are very frustrated when they have to repeat information to customer service.
• 65 percent are very annoyed by a lack of personalization. Paradoxically, 55 percent of executives actually rank this as a top business priority.
• 54 percent also expect personalization in service because they know that AI is capable of evaluating their previous interactions.

That's why 85 percent of CX decision-makers agree that AI agents that remember context and past interactions and learn from them will be a major trend in the coming year. According to executives, artificial long-term memory helps to build long-term and particularly deep customer relationships (86 percent) and to realize a personalized customer journey (82 percent).

Time is the Decisive Factor

The fact that customers are increasingly unwilling to invest time in their customer journey is putting additional pressure on CX decision-makers. Executives also see waiting times in contact centers as a problem, as these are increasingly deterring customers.

• 85 percent of CX professionals are certain that they will lose customers if their problems cannot be solved during the first service contact.
• 82 percent are aware that their target group expects fast, seamless service across all channels.
• For 83 percent, prompt responses are therefore no longer a selling point that companies can use to adorn themselves. Rather, in their opinion, it is a basic requirement.

Multimodal Service Is in Greater Demand

AI agents, supported by networked knowledge and context, are able to deliver significantly faster results. This is confirmed above all by those companies that have already achieved a high level of AI maturity (96 percent), while less AI-savvy companies are significantly more backward in this regard (60 percent). According to the study authors at Zendesk, precise assistance from tools based on artificial intelligence also means that customers can describe their concerns multimodally, depending on their personal context, for example via images, videos, or speech.

Furthermore, 79 percent of CX decision-makers observe that their customers want AI with the appropriate capabilities, which applies to 66 percent of German study participants. Great attention is paid to ensuring that the application does not have to be changed or restarted: every unnecessary click must be avoided. As explained in the study, multimodal service differs fundamentally from omnichannel consulting services, where customers have to choose from several channels.

Prompts More Effective Than Dashboards

Artificial intelligence also makes it significantly easier to evaluate customer interactions.

• 76 percent of German CX teams have found that prompt-based analyses deliver insights in a matter of seconds that previously required much more complex interpretations.
• 82 percent also see advantages in service employees being able to ask questions to AI.
• This could also replace traditional dashboards in the long term: 77 percent consider AI-supported analyses to be a useful alternative.

Mature Companies Lead the Way

It is striking that companies with a high level of AI maturity are particularly successful in smart data analysis and, in addition, make this achievement accessible to their service employees (97 percent in each case). In less developed organizations, this is only the case in 55 percent of cases. This gap is also evident when AI metrics are monitored in general. According to the study's projections, this will increase significantly by 2028, but is already highly relevant today. The following study graphic illustrates the development and the wide gap between advanced and less advanced companies.

Transparency is Everything

Worldwide, 79 percent of consumers now consider AI applications to be a normal part of customer service, and actual interaction with chatbots and other digital tools has also increased significantly within a year. However, the widespread presence of AI tools also means that customers have higher expectations of companies. For example, 95 percent want to be informed not only when AI is used, but also why. The explanation provided should be clear and easy to understand. This demand for transparency has increased by an impressive 63 percent compared to the previous year.

For CX decision-makers, this means that AI projects must be aligned with operational values, principles, and regulations.

• 80 percent are aware of this and consider transparency to be one of the most important cornerstones in all customer-related areas.
• In reality, however, only 37 percent actually meet this requirement, revealing glaring gaps in practice.
• Here, too, AI-savvy companies are already one step ahead: 85 percent have already introduced controls to ensure the traceability of AI conclusions or are planning to do so.

This is a partly automated translation of this german article.