Creating truly fantastic customer experiences is hard. Period. Technology evolves, customer expectations rise, and organizations struggle to keep pace with either, let alone both. But Agentic AI is changing that equation.
I dug into the 2025 Cisco AI Readiness Index and pulled out the key trends shaping how organizations are using AI to transform customer experience.
CX is winning the AI race
Customer experience is where AI, particularly Agentic AI, is making the biggest impact right now. 67 percent of respondents said AI is meeting or exceeding customer experience expectations today, and within the next 12 months, almost half predict further breakthroughs. With 40 percent of respondents anticipating these AI agents will collaborate directly with humans within the next year, this expectation is not only realistic but also a clear reflection of the evolving partnership between people and technology.
Here’s why: CX workflows are heavily dependent on human interaction. The real power of Agentic AI is not replacing those humans; it is augmenting them. AI handles the repetitive tasks, freeing teams to focus on high-value activities that actually create personalized experiences customers care about.
Agentic AI adoption is coming fast, but most aren’t ready
Organizations are betting big on agentic AI’s autonomous capabilities. 83 percent plan to deploy AI agents within the next year. But enthusiasm doesn’t equal readiness. Only 13 percent of companies are prepared to leverage AI effectively.
The problem? Most orgs are approaching AI adoption backwards. 53 percent of respondents are still navigating AI adoption in silos, running fragmented, opportunistic initiatives instead of building cohesive strategies. That’s not a deployment plan, that’s hope dressed up as action.
There’s a massive gap between AI ambition and AI execution.
Strategic planning is missing piece
There’s a massive gap between AI ambition and AI execution. I hear about this constantly from customers starting their AI journeys. They want to move the needle. They just don’t know how.
The answer? A cohesive AI change management plan. Yet only a third of organizations have actually built one.
Here’s what a real change management plan does: it guides your people, process, and technology through AI prioritization, adoption, and integration. It creates shared understanding across the org about what AI can do, what success looks like, and how you’ll get there. Most importantly, it defines specific use cases with measurable outcomes, not aspirational power point.
At Cisco CX, we’ve built our AI transformation this way. We aligned our capabilities with clear technology and business goals before we started building. We defined the outcomes we needed to hit. Then we built towards those outcomes, not toward the coolest demo.
The future of CX starts now
We are committed to helping customers bridge the gap between Agentic AI ambition and reality, making every customer interaction predictive, proactive, and personalized.
This isn’t a distant vision. Our research shows 68 percent of customer interactions will be handled by agentic AI by 2028. The future of customer experience is already here. The only question is whether you are ready for it.
Learn more — Read the Cisco AI Readiness Index 2025 and its in-depth report