Beyond Chatbots: How Agentic AI Can Automate Customer Experience
By Gaurav Juneja
Customer experience (CX) is evolving from simple interactions to more fluid, outcome-driven engagements. While early CX automation leaned heavily on chatbots, the future points toward something more advanced — Agentic AI. Rather than merely answering questions, this new wave of automation completes actions, offers insights, and actively supports both customers and agents. It is a transition from static tools to dynamic teammates, and it is already restyling how businesses manage customer journeys.
Why Chatbots Hit a Ceiling
Chatbots marked an early step in CX automation, helping companies handle common queries and reduce call volumes. But most chatbots today are reactive, script-bound, and incapable of managing complex tasks. They excel at deflection — redirecting users or handling FAQS — but rarely at resolution. And that’s where the friction begins.
A global survey by Forrester found that consumers rated their chatbot experiences an average of 6.4 out of 10. Half of the respondents admitted they often feel frustrated, and nearly 40 per cent described their chatbot interactions as negative. The consequences are real: 30 per cent of consumers said a bad chatbot experience led them to abandon their purchase, switch brands, or share their dissatisfaction with others.
The challenge goes beyond disappointing bots. Contact centres worldwide employ approximately 17 million agents, according to Gartner, but hiring and retaining them is increasingly difficult due to labour shortages. With labour expenses accounting for up to 95 per cent of contact centre costs, businesses are under pressure to do more with less, while still meeting customer expectations.
Agentic AI: Automation That Thinks and Acts
Agentic AI is designed to go beyond static content delivery. It makes decisions, completes tasks, and acts autonomously on behalf of users or agents. It can reschedule deliveries, update account information, process cancellations, and even suggest the next-best action in real time — all without waiting for human intervention.
Unlike traditional chatbots, Agentic AI brings depth and actionability to CX. Think of it as a co-worker who never sleeps. Along with responding ,it takes initiative. For example:
- AI Agents for Conversations can carry out entire workflows in chat or voice, such as processing returns or modifying bookings.
- AI Agents for Humans assist live agents by offering summaries, sentiment cues, and automated suggestions based on customer history.
- AI Agents for Intelligence monitor interactions across channels, providing real-time quality checks and deriving insights for continuous improvement.
This leap into automation is not just theoretical. Gartner predicts that by 2028, 33 per cent of enterprise software applications will feature Agentic AI capabilities, up from less than 1 per cent in 2024. These systems are expected to autonomously make 15 per cent of everyday business decisions.
Why Agentic AI Changes the Game
By shifting repetitive and time-consuming tasks to AI, businesses free up human agents to handle more meaningful conversations. This reduces handling times, lowers burnout, and allows for deeper connections with customers during high-impact moments.
It also unlocks real-time, data-informed decisions. According to research by Coleman Parkes and SAS, 46 per cent of leaders believe generative AI will significantly enhance their ability to make decisions on the fly. AI agents scan conversations, spot patterns, and highlight anomalies in ways traditional analytics often miss. For marketers, that means better insight generation (a top priority for 30 per cent of CMOs) and more accurate predictive models (cited by 27 per cent).
Real Use, Real Impact
Across sectors, Agentic AI is proving its value:
- Retail: Automated return processing, refund approvals, and delivery updates reduce wait times and increase satisfaction.
- Banking & Finance: From KYC verifications to account updates and loan status notifications, AI agents streamline regulated interactions.
- Travel & Logistics: They handle ticket modifications, cancellations, and real-time tracking updates — faster and with fewer errors.
- Consumer Durables: Troubleshooting, service scheduling, and even spare part replacements are handled with minimal to zero agent input.
Co-Pilots, Not Replacements
Agentic AI is not about replacing humans. It is about enabling them. By shifting the mundane to machines, businesses build a co-pilot model where AI manages the routine and people focus on the exceptional. This hybrid model strengthens overall service quality and improves employee morale.
Instead of aiming for zero human touch, the goal becomes intelligent collaboration, where the AI takes care of process-heavy steps, and humans step in for nuance, empathy, and problem-solving. Customers get faster resolutions without feeling like they are stuck in an automated loop.
What Enterprises Need to Get There
To reap the full potential of Agentic AI, a few building blocks are essential:
- A unified CX stack that connects data across customer touchpoints.
- Workflow orchestration tools and robust APIs to manage complex journeys.
- Industry-specific AI training to ensure contextual accuracy.
- Well-defined governance and escalation protocols to maintain compliance and trust.
AI-Managed CX is What Lies Ahead
Agentic AI is the next step in automation — it is the foundation for fully AI-managed customer experiences. It brings predictive power, real-time adaptability, and operational resilience. Businesses that adopt this approach can shift from reactive support to proactive service, where issues are anticipated, not just addressed.
As expectations grow and margins tighten, AI agents offer a scalable, intelligent solution that complements human skills while improving outcomes across the board. This is not about tools that talk. It is about systems that think, act, and enable — driving better experiences.
(The author is the CRO at Kapture CX)
Disclaimer: The opinions, beliefs, and views expressed by the various authors and forum participants on this website are personal and do not reflect the opinions, beliefs, and views of ABP Network Pvt. Ltd.
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