Are CX Professionals Really Embracing AI in Customer Experience?

Most CX professionals say AI has met or exceeded their expectations, according to a new Medallia Market Research report.

Artificial intelligence (AI) was one of the biggest trends in customer experience in 2024. Our experts predict it will continue to dominate customer experience trends in 2025 as brands leverage its capabilities to anticipate and meet customer needs across each and every interaction. 

Though it’s been talked up for the past few years, especially with the rise of generative AI (genAI), it’s more than just a buzzword. We’ve seen firsthand how AI is transforming customer experiences, and we’ve been eager to learn more about how customer experience professionals across industries really feel about AI, how they’re using it, what their AI strategies look like, and what concerns they might have. 

For answers, we conducted a Medallia Market Research survey of over 800 customer experience practitioners across a balanced set of industries, company sizes, and role levels in the U.S., UK, Australia and New Zealand, and Canada. 

The major takeaways from this study are now available in our new report: Beyond the Hype: What CX Practitioners Really Think of AI. Here are the highlights:

How brands are using AI in customer experience

If we had to pick one finding that most clearly demonstrates just how AI is a lot more than hype, it would be this: When we asked CX practitioners what the impact of AI has been so far on their businesses, an impressive 60% of our survey participants told us it has exceeded their expectations. Nearly everyone — 96% of customer experience professionals — answered that it has met or exceeded expectations.

Even when asked about the newest form of AI, genAI, the vast majority of participants say they’ve given this technology a try at least once, and nearly half (42%) say they’re regular users of genAI. 

And that’s only the beginning. Analyzing this survey’s results, I uncovered four unique themes that reveal a comprehensive picture of how CX professionals think about and use AI. Let’s dive into these now. 

CX professionals are optimistic about AI in customer experience 

Most (86%) of the leaders we surveyed believe AI will change what their organizations are able to achieve when it comes to the customer experience. And more than half say AI will outperform humans in as little as five years in two key areas: looking up information across various data sources, and summarizing and explaining larger sets of information.

In other areas, such as completing actions, identifying accurate insights and drawing conclusions from data, creating or editing content, figuring out what steps to take based on information, and understanding and answering customer questions, the professionals we gathered insights from do not feel AI will exceed human capabilities in the near-term. 

Most companies have established an AI roadmap

Three in four CX practitioners believe their companies have a clearly defined AI strategy that is comprehensive of customer experience use cases and benefits for their organizations.

Similarly, investing in AI is important to most of the professionals (84%) we surveyed, with the fastest-growing companies being 4.2 times more likely to agree that their investment in AI will be “very high” in the next 12 months compared to companies with the lowest-reported revenue growth rates.

Given the degree to which companies are embracing artificial intelligence in customer experience across their strategies and areas of investment, it should come as no surprise that AI-focused roles are becoming standard practice, with more than half of professionals (51%) reporting their organization has an AI-focused exec on board — and even more (70%) reporting having one or more roles dedicated to genAI.

AI is being embraced for a variety of evolving CX use cases

Currently, AI is most likely to be used to enhance backend analysis and streamline workflows. That said, things are likely to change this year, as more organizations embrace using artificial intelligence — genAI, specifically — for customer interactions. 

When we asked CX practitioners how they’re using AI right now, “enhancing the quality of data analysis” was the most frequently selected objective. One in five participants chose this as their top use case, two times more than any other option. The next top responses include “automation as a means of labor cost reduction” and “improving data analysis speed.” However, when we inquired about how organizations plan to use AI in the future, “using genAI for customer-facing issues” was the answer that came out on top. Other frequently cited future use cases include “simulating and predicting customer behavior or outcomes” and “automating actioning of comms” (for example, closing the loop).

CX professionals have data security concerns

We also asked CX leaders to share their priorities when selecting or developing AI tools. Data security and data privacy were the top two drivers influencing their choices, with the third being the potential return on investment of the AI solution.

It’s promising to see so many organizations approaching AI adoption thoughtfully. Data security and privacy are must-haves when selecting AI vendors. They’re areas Medallia is deeply committed to, with our company focused on implementing the highest standards for security of data storage and transmission, utilizing AI security best practices, and maintaining an internal AI Moderation Council that has oversight over all of our AI products at Medallia and an external AI Advisory Board that’s dedicated to the responsible and ethical use of AI. 

What’s on the horizon for artificial intelligence in customer experience?

Most organizations recognize that AI is vital to their business. Most say AI’s capabilities have met or exceeded their expectations. But how are companies evaluating the impact of AI — and in which areas do CX practitioners think they need to step up their investment in AI? 

Check out the complete report, Beyond the Hype: What CX Practitioners Really Think of AI, for more insights into the current and future state of the use of artificial intelligence in customer experience, according to your fellow CX professionals.