According to new research from Puzzel, 39% of organizations have achieved faster resolution times through AI, while 30% report measurable gains in both customer satisfaction and agent productivity.
The report, which surveyed 1,505 CX leaders across Europe, also revealed that 83% of leaders rate their AI-powered self-service options as effective at resolving issues without agent involvement.
Given these statistics, on paper, the business case for AI in CX looks solid. But are customers actually experiencing these improvements? Or are companies simply measuring success through an operational lens?
The numbers suggest a disconnect.
Despite all these AI-driven efficiency gains, rising customer expectations remain the single biggest challenge facing contact centers in 2026. If AI is working so well, why are customers still harder to satisfy?
Sundeep Boughan, Director of Sales Engineering at Puzzel, thinks the answer lies in how organizations approach the technology.
“There’s a natural shift in terms of companies looking at the customer first, putting them at the center of everything, and then working back to the technology,” he says.
“It’s less about saying sorry for the inconvenience that you may have experienced or may not have experienced in a very patronizing way. It’s more around actually thinking about what the customer wants and working from that.”
The Metrics Gap: Speed Doesn’t Always Equal Satisfaction
The gap between operational success and customer-felt improvement often comes down to what’s being measured.
Speed matters, but not at the expense of everything else.
An interaction can be resolved quickly and still leave a customer feeling unheard or frustrated. Automation can handle volume efficiently while creating new friction points that only become visible when you look beyond the metrics.
Boughan shares an example from a utilities company that kept seeing ‘payment’ flagged as a recurring issue in their data.
Traditional keyword analysis suggested they had a billing problem. Dig deeper using conversational intelligence, though, and the real issue surfaced: customers were still being charged after canceling their accounts.
“Had they gone with just the simple view of keyword searches, they would have thought this is a payment issue, but the reality was it’s actually a cancellation issue,” Boughan explains.
“That’s an example where you need to identify the real cause of the problem.”
This kind of insight highlights the benefits of moving beyond surface-level data.
Indeed, nearly eight in ten contact centers now use some form of AI to analyze customer interactions, according to the research.
But there’s a difference between basic automation that spots keywords and advanced conversational intelligence that understands context, intent, and emotion.
The former tells you what customers are talking about. The latter tells you how they feel about it.
Where the Empathy Gap Shows Up
One area where the empathy gap is most prevalent is in scripted interactions.
Puzzel’s research found that 38% of customers feel chatbots lack empathy, while 32% say the same about overly scripted human conversations.
Speed and consistency are valuable, but they can’t come at the cost of making customers feel like they’re talking to a system rather than getting help.
Boughan explains how the industry has been “very metric-driven in the CX space – focusing on average handle time, average wait time, and abandonment rates.
“But that’s not necessarily always the best indicator. First contact resolution may be a better metric to really focus on, because the customer just wants their problem resolved immediately and correctly.”
Engineering Empathy from the Start
Bridging this gap starts with engineering empathy from the design phase, not sprinkling it on afterward.
That means understanding the whole customer journey, identifying moments where emotional intelligence matters most, and building systems that route interactions accordingly.
The research shows that 42% of contact centers now train agents specifically on empathy in AI-assisted conversations, while 40% maintain a human-in-the-loop for complex cases.
Boughan argues that “you should always start with the customer. What is the customer trying to do?
“Having this 360-degree view of what the customer needs and how they interact with you, that has to be the center of everything.”
The technology is getting better at supporting this approach.
Guardrails that keep AI from going off-script, conversational analytics that identify silent pain points, and agent-assist tools that surface relevant information in real time all help create space for more human interaction where it counts.
The research found that 91% of CX leaders now see AI copilots as essential for supporting agents over the next two years, up from 65% last year.
The Maturity Factor
There’s also a maturity factor at play. Early AI implementations often tried to do too much, treating the technology as a silver bullet.
Now, organizations are taking a more focused approach, targeting specific use cases and measuring results beyond just efficiency. Boughan says:
“They’re kind of biting off just as much as they can chew rather than going too far with it.”
“Maturity, analytics, and understanding where empathy is required versus where there are mundane tasks that just require a simple response.”
The path forward involves treating AI as a tool to enable better human service, not as a replacement.
That means using conversational intelligence to understand what customers actually need, deploying automation where it genuinely helps, and preserving human judgment for moments that require it.
It means measuring success not just by how fast interactions are resolved, but by whether customers feel heard and helped.
The business case for AI in contact centers is real, and the efficiency gains are measurable.
But if those improvements aren’t translating into better customer experiences, something’s missing.
The question isn’t whether AI works; it’s whether it’s working for the right outcomes.
Register now for Puzzel’s April 9, 2026 webinar: How to build AI service journeys that customers trust
Download the full State of Contact Centres 2026 report from Puzzel to explore how leading organizations are balancing AI efficiency with customer-felt improvements.
