Imagine calling customer service and hearing, “We’ve already fixed that for you.” That, in a nutshell, is the future of how customer experience could transform in 2025 thanks to advances being driven by artificial intelligence.
AI isn’t just answering questions anymore—it’s becoming both predictive and also moving to actually solving problems by taking action.
Here are my top four predictions for how customer experience, driven by intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and conversational intelligence, will move from reactive to predictive in 2025. You can expect this shift will reshape how organizations interact with customers, enabling effortless and impactful customer journeys.
Proactive engagement
You know what it’s like to have a service representative take a couple of minutes to read through previous notes on your interactions with a company. Imagine an AI engine that can quickly take in all that information and use that data to anticipate your needs. Whether it’s knowing your deep purchasing history as a loyal customer of a favorite brand, or a customer who has been working through an issue through multiple touch points. By the time you’ve made contact—via phone, chat, or text—the IVA is already moving from putting out fires to lighting the way for a seamless, proactive experience.
The upside is AI enabling automatic problem solving. The challenge for companies will be to ensure customers feel comfortable adopting this new technology. Those of us who have been around for a while and are used to pressing zero to get to an agent right away need to have confidence that the technology is integrated and developed in such a way that it can actually solve the problem.
Enhanced human-AI partnership
The range of tasks that IVAs can tackle is expanding every day. It used to be that the automated phone system could tell you what your bank balance is. Now, the IVA can actually complete transactional tasks like making a transfer. That means human agents can focus on advanced interactions and cultivating relationships in a way that supports building brand equity.
Increasingly, companies can count on AI not just to pull from knowledge bases, but to write to them and improve the experience overall. At the same time, humans can do what they are uniquely equipped to do: build relationships and focus on emotional connections.
Conversational intelligence at scale
Countless hours of customer interactions are recorded every day. Now, imagine all those conversations transcribed, analyzed, and the insights from direct customer interactions provided to departments beyond CX. When product, marketing, and operations have access to that gold mine of actionable data, they can use those customer insights to drive strategic decisions that differentiate and deliver value.
But it’s not just customer conversations. Internal conversations that are recorded can also provide data that is invaluable on the front lines and across the enterprise. Instead of data getting trapped in silos, it can be used more globally in the organization to help build better products, service customers better, improve operational efficiencies, and more.
Omnichannel mastery
Omnichannel has been great for letting customers interact in the way they want to. But we all know the frustration of getting one experience or answer when you chat, a different one on the phone, and maybe a third via text. Customers want consistency and predictive AI can deliver it through personalized interactions across all touchpoints, from apps to IVAs to in-person agents.
Importantly, though, where AI supports a human interaction, it’s important to build it into the software so that we do not make it overwhelming for the agent. The design philosophy must be to create an easy, friendly environment with a UI that helps the agent rather than hindering or overwhelming them.
In 2025, the companies that win won’t be pursuing AI for the sake of AI. Rather, they’ll be the ones deploying AI fit for purpose, with a continued focus on security, trust, and privacy. AI should be built into products—not just layered on top—so it feels like it’s naturally there and makes everyone’s lives easier.
Originally published Dec 18, 2024
