By 2027, 50% of organisations that expected to significantly reduce their customer service workforce will abandon these plans, according to Gartner.

This shift comes as many companies struggle to achieve their “agent-less” staffing goals, highlighting the complexities and challenges of transitioning to AI-driven customer service models.

A Gartner poll of 163 customer service and support leaders conducted in March 2025 found 95% of customer service leaders plan to retain human agents to strategically define AI’s role. This approach ensures a “digital first, but not digital only” strategy, avoiding the pitfalls of a hasty transition to an agentless model.

“While AI offers significant potential to transform customer service, it is not a panacea. The human touch remains irreplaceable in many interactions, and organisations must balance technology with human empathy and understanding,” said Kathy Ross, senior director analyst in the Gartner Customer Service & Support practice.

“A hybrid approach, where AI and human agents work in tandem, is the most effective strategy for delivering exceptional customer experiences.”

Organisations should clearly define AI’s role, prioritise strategic objectives, and determine the roles of human agents. This strategic alignment is essential to enhance customer service without compromising quality, ensuring that AI serves as a complement rather than a replacement for human interaction.

This will not only improve service quality but also ensure that organisations remain agile and responsive to customer needs.

The Momentum Toward AI-Driven Service is Unstoppable

Reinforcing this trajectory, a recent report from Cisco highlights the transformative potential of agentic artificial intelligence for how technology vendors deliver services and support to their customers

The research, titled The Race to an Agentic Future: How Agentic AI Will Transform Customer Experience, surveyed nearly 8,000 global business and technical decision-makers across 30 countries.

Respondents predicted that agentic AI will play an increasingly prominent role in interactions with technology vendors over the coming years—and they’re positive about the benefits it’ll bring.

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Specifically, 88% report they felt confident that the agentic AI-led customer experience provided by technology partners will help their organisation to achieve its goals. For instance, making their IT environments and operations more efficient, resilient, and secure; accelerating their most important strategic IT projects; and maximising value from their IT investments.

The respondents also expect the pivot to agentic AI-led customer experience to advance at a greater velocity than the industry anticipated. They predicted that 68% of their customer experience interactions with technology partners will be handled using agentic AI within the next three years, and also expect that more than half (56%) of interactions to be through agentic AI within the next 12 months.

When it comes to the implementation of this new technology, respondents were clear that they believe vendors who are left behind—or fail to deploy—agentic AI in an effective, secure, and ethical manner will suffer a deterioration in customer relationships, reputational damage, and higher levels of customer churn.