By Nitin Garg
In today’s digital-first world, customer expectations are evolving. Customers seek seamless, personalised interactions and real-time problem resolution. Traditional automation tools, while efficient, no longer suffice. Agentic AI – intelligent systems capable of reasoning, deciding, and acting autonomously – will redefine customer support by blending efficiency, scalability, and human-like engagement.
A recent shift in enterprise IT priorities underscores this: 85% of CIOs plan to increase AI budgets this year, with 42% identifying customer experience as the primary driver. Businesses are no longer just experimenting with AI in customer service – they are rearchitecting support operations to be more responsive, intelligent, and empathetic at scale. Agentic AI analyses data, makes independent decisions, and learns from every interaction. A Cloudera survey shows 96% of IT leaders plan to expand AI agents within a year, while Gartner predicts that by 2029 they will resolve 80% of service issues, cutting costs by 30%.
An example is Lenovo’s AI assistant, Lena. Initially launched as a virtual troubleshooting tool, Lena now independently resolves nearly 20% more customer queries than it did three years ago – a reflection of how AI systems can rapidly scale and adapt to customer needs.
Customers expect more than issue resolution – they want proactive, personalised, and emotionally intelligent support. Agentic AI enables this by analysing context, sentiment, and history to anticipate needs and respond with empathy, shifting support from a reactive function to a strategic advantage. By reducing customer effort and delivering human-like interactions at scale, brands solve problems faster and build trust and loyalty.
One of the promises of agentic AI is its ability to scale operations without sacrificing personalisation. By taking over routine interactions such as order tracking or basic diagnostics, AI systems can reduce the average cost-per-interaction by half, while increasing customer satisfaction metrics like first-contact resolution and response time.
But efficiency is one part. As AI becomes more autonomous, governance, explainability, and fairness are critical. Transparency in decision-making, along with human fallback mechanisms, is essential to maintain trust. Speed and scale matter little if customers feel unheard. Ethical AI, grounded in fairness and accountability, ensures the experience is enhanced without compromising integrity.
Agentic AI augments human capabilities rather than replacing them. AI handles repetitive queries, freeing humans to address complex cases requiring empathy, negotiation, or contextual understanding. This hybrid model reduces operational strain and improves service quality. Enterprises report up to 35% reductions in handling times and better employee experience, as repetitive tasks are offloaded and support teams deliver more meaningful value.
Envision a future where AI and humans work as partners: AI ensures efficiency, humans focus on empathy and judgment. This collaboration maximises both speed and emotional connection, creating smarter, faster, and more human customer support.
Agentic AI is ushering in a new era of customer support – one where systems proactively engage with customers, personalise interactions, and scale effortlessly. When applied thoughtfully, these technologies do more than automate tasks; they elevate the role of customer support into a strategic growth driver. Enterprises that combine agentic AI with oversight, ethical frameworks, and a human-in-the-loop mindset will define the benchmark for service excellence.
