Customer experience (CX) leaders are bracing to operate in a radically different landscape in as little as three years, according to a new study of over 1,300 senior CX leaders from Zendesk.

Over two-thirds (68%) of those in the UK expect an end to traditional CX as we know it, giving way to radically different industry dynamics.

The majority (69%) of UK CX leaders believe the volume of customer service interactions will increase five times by 2027. With Zendesk, over four billion tickets are created per year, which suggests this could balloon to approximately 20 billion in as little as three years.

However, artificial intelligence (AI) is widely regarded as a pivotal solution to help the industry manage this large influx, with four-fifths (80%) agreeing it will change everything about CX, and over three-quarters (77%) stating that it will make or break businesses.

In terms of where AI can offer future potential, UK CX leaders believe that AI agents like chatbots will become equipped to handle questions of any complexity (78%), while self-service has the potential to become fully automated and self-updating, ensuring seamless handoff when human intervention is necessary (79%).

Many also believe that AI capabilities will advance to offer solutions and offers to customers pre-emptively based on past interactions (79%), and that its tone of voice will adapt to emotional cues and reflect brand voice (74%).

With these AI capabilities adopted, over half (55%) say that wait times in the UK could disappear within the next few years, as almost two-thirds (62%) believe that customers will no longer get trapped in endless cycles with bots thanks to advanced systems ensuring seamless escalation to human agents when needed.

Despite this, CX leaders in the UK acknowledge several challenges over the coming years. Currently, only 25% consider their AI adoption to be advanced, highlighting the need for further development across the industry.

Key obstacles hindering their progress include figuring out how to preserve the human touch, which concerns 81% of leaders, ensuring compliance with evolving data regulation laws, a challenge for 79%, and securing customer acceptance of AI-driven customer service, which poses an issue for 78%.

As a result, efforts are currently focused around areas such as improving data and cyber security (40%) and investing in new technologies (39%) to enhance capabilities.

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“The UK market has already adapted tremendously over the past few years, with the impact of the pandemic and global inflation changing the way both consumers and organisations see the customer experience,” comments Eric Jorgensen, VP EMEA at Zendesk.

He adds: “AI is the next big frontier across the industry. But in contrast to previous disruptive forces, it has the means to bring a positive impact, evidenced by the fact that leaders feel it has the potential to eliminate wait times in only the next three years.

“Once we tackle and overcome considerations around acceptance, regulation and security, AI will bring a great transformation to our industry. But it must be approached in a thoughtful and responsible way to truly improve experiences for CX teams and their customers.”