AI in customer experience: Benefits, examples, and best practices

Strong customer experience is the competitive edge that sets organizations apart in an era of instant expectations.

By 2028, 68% of all customer service and support interactions with technology vendors are predicted to be handled by agentic AI. Across the customer journey, AI is helping teams work more efficiently while giving customers exactly what they need, when they need it. From always-on self-service to virtual assistants designed to support human agents, AI is reshaping customer experience.

In this article, we’ll break down 10 practical ways AI is improving customer experience, the benefits it delivers to customers and CX teams, real-world examples, and best practices for putting AI to work.

What is AI in customer experience?

AI in customer experience makes interactions smoother, smarter, and more intuitive. Beyond speed, AI makes each interaction feel relevant and personal. CX teams are increasingly adopting agentic AI—systems that can understand goals, take action, and collaborate with other AI agents to complete tasks. With multi-agent orchestration, these systems work together behind the scenes to automate processes, assist human agents in real time, and deliver tailored experiences at scale.

As companies integrate AI more deeply into their strategies, they’re finding that it does more than improve satisfaction. It helps strengthen customer loyalty and retention, pairing personalization with operational efficiency to deliver exceptional customer experiences.

Why is AI in customer experience important?

Today’s customers expect seamless, end-to-end journeys—not fragmented interactions. They want fast responses, personalized support, and consistent service across every touchpoint. Meeting those expectations at scale is challenging for CX teams as interaction volumes grow and needs become more complex. AI helps close that gap.

Agentic AI gives organizations the ability to understand customer needs in real time, analyze large amounts of data, and make decisions quickly. It also improves operations by helping teams spot issues earlier and streamline their workflows. While adopting new technology can seem daunting, organizations that test, learn, and implement AI thoughtfully often see meaningful gains in customer satisfaction, loyalty, and trust.

10 ways AI makes customer experience better.

AI is redefining how organizations support and engage customers. Here are ten ways it’s creating the biggest impact.

1. Offer customer self-service.

AI-powered self-service options transform how organizations handle routine inquiries by making it faster and easier for customers to get help on their own—anytime, day or night. Agentic AI systems can understand customer questions, locate the right information, and deliver clear responses instantly. Instead of waiting in a queue, customers can access accurate answers pulled directly from a company’s knowledge base, creating a smoother, more convenient experience.

AI agents also know when to escalate. If the AI can’t resolve an issue, it seamlessly transfers the customer to a human agent with the right context already in place, balancing efficiency with personal support.

2. Provide automated agent assistance during customer interactions.

AI empowers human agents by providing real-time assistance during customer interactions. AI-powered live agent assistance tools offer valuable support through features like automated transcription, sentiment analysis, and suggested responses. These tools analyze conversations in real time, detecting key issues while giving agents insights to respond more accurately and efficiently.

One standout feature is knowledge retrieval, where AI surfaces relevant information from the company’s knowledge base, reducing the time agents spend searching for answers. Plus, AI can suggest next-best actions, such as offering discounts or recommending personalized solutions.

AI-powered customer experience solutions also help agents improve productivity. ​Instead of simply automating administrative tasks, AI agents can handle the complex issues that once required manual intervention. Plus, AI-powered platforms offer deep performance insights, giving leaders visibility into AI-specific metrics such as automated resolution rate, transfer-to-human rate, and interaction-summary accuracy. With actionable insights, businesses can continuously coach and improve agent performance, fostering productivity and job satisfaction.

3. Scale operations more easily.

AI makes it simpler to scale customer operations by adding new agents with specific skills as needed—without retraining the existing system. These AI agents can complete real tasks across service, sales, and support, working alongside human teams and effectively expanding the workforce during peak periods.

Unlike traditional CCaaS systems that focus on managing interactions, CXA activates AI agents to do the actual work behind those interactions. They can resolve issues, execute multi-step tasks, and generate knowledge at scale, all coordinated through agentic AI. As demand fluctuates, organizations can increase capacity simply by plugging in additional agents, maintaining consistent service quality without increasing operational costs or overwhelming frontline teams.

4. Give customers the fastest possible path to a resolution.

By intelligently routing queries, AI delivers quick, effective resolutions to meet customer needs. For instance, when a customer submits a question, AI-powered systems can instantly analyze the inquiry to determine its complexity. Simple questions, like order status updates or account resets, are automatically directed to self-service tools, where customers can quickly find answers without waiting for an agent.

For more complex issues, AI doesn’t just assign the query to the next available agent; it goes further, matching the customer with the agent most qualified to handle the specific problem. This smart routing ensures customers receive expert-level assistance right from the start, minimizing transfers and reducing the frustration of repeating information.

5. Analyze data to make customer service even more efficient.

The best-performing organizations don’t just handle customer issues; they learn from them. By analyzing customer data, companies can uncover patterns, identify areas for improvement, and fine-tune future interactions. Here are a few critical KPIs every organization should monitor to help improve customer experience:

• First contact resolution (FCR). Measures the percentage of issues resolved in a single interaction, highlighting efficiency and customer satisfaction.

• Customer effort score (CES). Tracks how easy it is for customers to resolve their issues, with lower effort correlating to higher satisfaction.

• Net promoter score (NPS). Gauges customer loyalty by asking how likely they are to recommend the business to others.

• Average handle time (AHT). Monitors how long agents take to resolve an issue, balancing speed and quality of service.

• Customer satisfaction score (CSAT). Directly measures how happy customers are with the company’s products, services, or interactions.

As customer needs evolve, data-driven strategies ensure companies are always one step ahead, delivering better experiences with every engagement.

6. Engage customers across the channels they prefer.

Customers expect flexibility, and an omnichannel experience allows them to connect in their preferred channel—whether through phone, email, social media, live chat, or text. Creating a seamless experience across all channels allows customers to move from one platform to another without losing context or having to repeat themselves.

AI makes this possible by connecting different channels and unifying customer data in real time. With an AI-powered platform, organizations can offer proactive, personalized support no matter where the interaction starts or ends. AI also ensures a smooth handoff between channels, tracking conversations across touchpoints to deliver relevant, consistent responses.

Implementing an omnichannel contact center strategy takes thoughtful planning—there’s no one-and-done solution. Here’s how to get it right:

1. Assess existing channels. Identify which platforms are already in use and where improvements are needed.

2. Centralize customer data. Unify all customer interactions into a single system for consistent service.

3. Leverage AI insights. Use AI tools to analyze conversations and offer real-time guidance.

4. Monitor performance metrics. Track key KPIs to continuously refine the omnichannel strategy.

With AI powering the customer experience strategy, organizations can engage smarter and build stronger relationships.

7. Improve knowledge management processes.

Strong knowledge management is essential to delivering fast, accurate customer support. When information is easy to find and consistently maintained, agents can resolve issues with confidence and customers get clearer answers with far less effort.

AI enhances knowledge management by making information more accessible and easier to navigate. With AI-powered semantic search, agents can find complete, relevant answers with a single query rather than digging through multiple documents or systems. This reduces time spent searching and helps ensure customers receive accurate, consistent information.

AI also helps unify scattered knowledge sources. It can connect content across different platforms and tools, creating a more cohesive knowledge environment where teams manage information from one central place. Content can then be organized based on context, with an AI copilot recommending the most relevant resources during customer interactions and surfacing the right information at the right moment.

8. Improve employee collaboration.

AI customer experience platforms enhance employee collaboration by seamlessly connecting teams across channels. These platforms integrate tools such as chat, email, and video conferencing so different departments can easily share information, updates, and insights, leading to more coordinated efforts when resolving customer issues​.

Plus, AI supports collaboration by facilitating internal workflows. AI can even provide real-time coaching and alerts, so agents and managers stay aligned on priorities. This interconnected communication reduces silos, improves teamwork, and ultimately drives better customer outcomes by ensuring every employee is on the same page​.

9. Prevent customers from repeating themselves.

Customers don’t like repeating information, particularly if they’re already frustrated with their product or support experience. AI solutions address this by summarizing conversations at the end of each interaction. These summaries ensure that if a customer’s issue requires follow-up—whether through a different channel or with a new agent—the next touchpoint has the context needed to provide seamless support.

In addition to improving customer satisfaction, this continuity is valuable when customers switch channels or are transferred to a new agent for the same issue. AI-generated conversation summaries ensure agents have the context they need to focus on resolving the problem quickly, rather than re-gathering information. As a result, customers feel heard, and agents are better equipped to provide meaningful support.

10. Learn how customers feel about a brand.

To truly understand why customers are leaving angry or frustrated, organizations can now go beyond traditional sentiment analysis and identify emotional cues to uncover how customers are feeling and why they feel that way.

Basic sentiment analysis typically classifies text as positive, negative, or neutral, offering a broad overview of customer emotions. Hyperpersonalized AI tools allow businesses to leverage natural language processing (NLP) to detect subtleties in tone, context, and language patterns, providing deeper insights into specific emotions and complex human feelings such as frustration, gratitude, or excitement. Unlike typical sentiment analysis, it identifies the intensity and underlying reasons for a customer’s feelings, enabling organizations to respond to their needs empathetically.

11. BONUS: Power an on-premises contact center.

On-premises contact centers can benefit from the same AI-driven capabilities as cloud environments without costly infrastructure changes or specialized data teams. Agentic AI enhances existing systems by improving call routing, guiding interactions, and providing real-time insights that help teams respond more effectively.

AI tools can also strengthen visibility and decision-making. Live transcription, sentiment analysis, and real-time recommendations give agents and supervisors a clearer picture of what’s happening in every interaction. Meanwhile, analytics dashboards help managers monitor performance, identify trends, and optimize operations over time.

What are the benefits of AI in customer experience?

AI brings clear, practical benefits to customer experience. It helps teams understand customers better, respond faster, and deliver interactions that feel more personal and consistent. Consider these key benefits of AI in CX:

• More personalized experiences. AI picks up on customer preferences and behavior, helping teams tailor recommendations, messages, and support experiences that feel genuinely relevant.

• Seamless omnichannel experiences. AI connects data from chat, email, voice, and digital channels so customers can switch between them without repeating information or losing context.

• Deeper understanding of customer sentiment. AI can interpret language, tone, and feedback at scale, giving teams a clearer picture of how customers feel and where improvements are needed.

• Real-time journey adjustments. AI adapts to what a customer is doing in the moment, surfacing the right content, next-best action, or solution exactly when it’s needed.

• Unified customer data. AI brings together information stored across platforms, giving organizations a unified view that supports better service and long-term relationships.

How does AI improve the customer experience? Four case studies.

Let’s dive into four compelling case studies to see how organizations are leveraging AI to improve customer experience.

Michaels: Transforming agent experience to improve customer satisfaction.

With more than 1,200 stores, Michaels is one of North America’s largest arts and crafts retailers. Michaels came to Talkdesk to help transform its customer experience with AI solutions. Talkdesk Copilot became a cornerstone of Michaels’ AI strategy, offering agents powerful tools for customer interaction management. As a result, Michaels improved service levels from 20% to 89% year-over-year and reduced after-call work by 93%.

Serta Simmons Bedding: Making agents even more effective.

Leading mattress manufacturer, Serta Simmons Bedding, improved agent efficiency and productivity with AI-powered solutions from Talkdesk. With tools like Talkdesk Digital Engagement for SMS, chat, and voice channels, as well as Talkdesk Interaction & Quality Analytics and Talkdesk Copilot, agents could quickly access the information they needed, reducing time spent on manual tasks. Additionally, Talkdesk integrations with Salesforce, Confluence, and ServiceNow brought everything into one platform, so agents no longer had to jump between systems.

Municipal Credit Union: Empowering customers to solve their own problems.

Serving over 600,000 members across 15 branch locations, Municipal Credit Union (MCU) has transformed financial services support with AI-driven self-service tools. These innovations empower members to resolve issues independently, streamlining problem resolution and reducing reliance on live agents. The impact has been profound: a 25% increase in customers resolving challenges through self-service channels and a notable drop in call volume, allowing agents to focus on more complex, high-priority cases.

Improve your customer experience with Talkdesk CXA.

AI is now a core part of delivering standout customer experiences, and organizations that embrace automation are seeing faster resolutions, stronger loyalty, and more efficient operations. Talkdesk Customer Experience Automation (CXA) takes this a step further by helping enterprises automate entire customer journeys, not just individual tasks.

With multi-agent orchestration, CXA deploys specialized AI agents that work across systems to complete time-consuming tasks, such as qualifying leads, resolving disputes, updating records, and handling complex steps that would otherwise slow teams down. It’s a virtuous cycle of automation that helps organizations deliver smoother experiences while reducing operational effort.

Ready to elevate your customer experience? Learn how Talkdesk Customer Experience Automation (CXA) can help your organization automate more, deliver better, and modernize customer experience on your terms.