Customer service teams are investing more in AI technology, but the economic value often fails to materialize, Gartner notes. At the same time, other research shows that consumers are increasingly using chatbots themselves to resolve their customer queries.

 

Gartner found that customer service and support teams pick up nearly five AI applications simultaneously on average and spend about 13 percent of their departmental budget on AI. Only a quarter of the AI ​​applications in customer service lead to demonstrable ROI. For 42 percent, the ROI is unclear: support managers simply say they do not know what the return is. And for another quarter, there is a negative return. Despite the questionable returns, more than three out of four managers plan to further increase their AI investments in 2026.

Of all business functions, customer service leads the way in enterprise AI adoption, Gartner notes. Customer service and support teams pick up nearly five AI applications simultaneously on average and spend about 13 percent of their departmental budget on AI. At the same time, only 11 percent of customer service use cases break even.

Deploying AI is often a necessity.

Antoine Nasr, who works at Forethought AI Agents, tells trade journal CX Dive that this is the 'result' of the fact that everyone has to do something with AI. He points out that it is often a top-down initiative: “we need AI in customer service and customer experience.” A clear customer problem is often lacking when management instructs customer service to start working with AI.

Containment as a goal is also the wrong approach if it does not help the customer. Delaying contact with a human employee is not the same as solving the customer's problem, say experts at CX Dive. The real test should be: did the customer get what they needed, with less effort?

Many companies are counting on cost savings through staff reductions, with AI agents taking over a large portion of easy-to-answer questions from customer service representatives. However, according to Gartner, a quarter of organizations report that their workforce is growing, and another quarter that it is shrinking.

Customers are increasingly solving their service problems with AI, but not with the AI ​​that companies have invested in.

Other research by Gartner shows that consumer uptake of AI is starting to take shape. Consumers seek help from ChatGPT or Gemini three times more often than from the company's own chatbot when facing a service problem. This is evident from research from Gartner among 3.566 B2B and B2C customers. Or put another way: consumers are increasingly solving their service problems with AI, but not with the AI ​​that companies have invested in.

The use of external genAI tools for customer contact issues has nearly doubled in a year. The use of business chatbots has remained statistically unchanged since 2022. Consumers are now also taking things a step further. Customers are increasingly using their own AI to get things done. 58 percent of genAI users have had the tool perform a task on their behalf, such as booking an appointment, submitting documents, or managing a subscription. In B2B, this rises to 74 percent. Gartner predicted in 2023 that twenty percent of inbound customer contact volume would come from machine customers by 2026.

According to Eric Keller, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, most enterprise chatbots are still built to answer questions, whereas customers now expect AI to act. His advice to customer contact organizations: redesign digital support around conversational, action-oriented pathways instead of continuing to invest in a standalone chatbot.

The same study also shows that 87 percent of customers consider it essential to have an option to reach an employee once a company deploys AI. Companies that push customers through multiple failed AI interactions first will not see them return to that channel, according to the study. Keller.

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Customer Experience