Gartner has predicted that 30 percent of Fortune 500 companies will provide customer service “only through a single, AI-enabled channel” by 2028.
While many organizations deploy numerous distinct channels, moving forward, more businesses will likely orchestrate a single experience that aligns with a particular customer intent.
That experience may blend modalities, AI, and – when necessary – humans.
Currently, most contact centers handle all types of queries across different channels, leading to inconsistent experiences and – according to Gartner – high complexity and expense.
By enhancing existing omnichannel capabilities with more sophisticated, voice-enabled AI, Gartner predicts that businesses will be able to “dramatically simplify the service experience.”
While this may sound like an extreme approach, particular CCaaS providers – notably Google and UJET – have long advocated for routing the customer to the best-placed channel – based on their intent – and delivering that blended service experience.
However, first-generation CCaaS providers may not be set up for this. Moreover, most enterprise contact centers remain on-premise. So the prediction is perhaps a little optimistic.
Nevertheless, Patrick Quinlan, Senior Director Analyst in the Customer Service and Support Practice at Gartner, suggests the advancements of generative AI (GenAI) will be the major driving force behind the growth of single-channel customer service.
“As GenAI continues to mature and facilitate seamless voice interactions, voice-based customer service isn’t going away,” he said.
It will instead evolve to meet customers’ needs for a more simple service experience.
“Service and support leaders must pivot from a long-held focus on which channels customers use to a focus on how customers want to communicate.”
More Predictions, From Mobile Phones to Fraud
Away from channel strategy transformations, Gartner also predicted that by 2028, 70 percent of customer service journeys will start and finish using conversational third-party assistants on mobile devices.
This forecast is built off the back of a survey of almost 5,500 people, which revealed that 45 percent of customers are currently using GenAI in their personal lives, at work, or both.
Gartner believes that as conversational GenAI becomes more ingrained in everyday life, it will also become more integrated into mobile devices and – therefore – transform how customers look to communicate with brands.
This will lead to customers increasingly using third-party assistants like Apple AI and Google Gemini to resolve issues, bypassing official service channels.
In a more troubling prediction, the company has suggested that the advancements in conversational AI are likely to lead to more fraudsters exploiting the tech to bypass systems and deceive service agents.
Indeed, analysis conducted earlier this year by audio traffic monitoring expert Pindrop revealed that fraudsters are increasingly using AI to clone customers’ voices and hack into contact centers.
In response to this threat, Gartner predicts service organizations will adopt advanced identity verification and multi-layered security measures to combat fraud and safeguard customer interactions.
“It’s important to note that though the intention was to reduce customer effort, a single, AI-enabled channel may actually increase efforts and lead to customer churn,” said Quinlan.
Leaders will need to balance strategies to reduce effort with those to protect customers from fraud.
More GenAI Predictions from Gartner in 2024
Back in July, Gartner predicted a GenAI backlash within 18 months, estimating that 30 percent of GenAI projects will be abandoned after proof of concept by late 2025.
Speaking at the Data & Analytics Summit in Sydney, Gartner highlighted concerns over poor data quality, weak risk controls, and high costs with unclear ROI.
The significant upfront and recurring expenses were also outlined as particularly challenging barriers to adoption.
Elsewhere, Gartner recently forecasted that by 2028, one-third of GenAI interactions will involve action models and autonomous agents – AI systems capable of independently performing tasks, learning from their environment, and improving over time.
According to Gartner, these advanced AI tools are expected to have impactful applications across sectors such as healthcare, education, insurance, and gaming.
