Top AI adopters in customer service gain over 50% KPI improvements, but value realization remains uneven: EY report
New Delhi [India], : Organizations realizing the highest value from artificial intelligence in customer service reported up to 50 per cent or higher improvements across core customer service key performance indicators, according to EY India’s latest report.
The report mentioned that while AI adoption expanded broadly, business value generation remained uneven.
The report classified enterprises into three categories based on outcomes: Achievers, accounting for 23 per cent of respondents who secured high or very high value; Challengers, making up 33 per cent with moderate returns; and Aspirants, forming 44 per cent with low or very low returns.
Achievers regularly registered 25 per cent to 50 per cent or higher gains, exceeding 50 per cent improvements across core metrics such as customer experience, revenue uplift, average handle time, and agent productivity. In comparison, Challengers experienced 10 per cent to 25 per cent progress, while Aspirants recorded less than 10 per cent or tracked no metrics.
Preeti Anand, Partner, Business Consulting at EY India, said, “While AI adoption in customer service has become widespread, value realization remains uneven, with many still struggling to move beyond fragmented use cases.”
“Our research shows that organizations realizing the greatest value are building strong foundations, integrating AI across workflows and, importantly, measuring success through business outcomes,” she added. “The next competitive advantage will come from how effectively firms connect intelligence across the customer journey and turn it into sustained business value.”
Technology deployment patterns showed sharp contrasts across customer service lifecycles. Voice AI reached scaled deployments among 91 per cent of Achievers, with 45 per cent utilizing rules-based bots and 37 per cent running advanced AI-driven intent prioritization systems.
On the other hand, more than 80 per cent of Challengers and Aspirants continued using human personnel or basic menu-driven interactive voice response systems.
Arun Nagarajan, Partner, Technology Consulting at EY India said, “Many organizations view AI or technology deployment as the key success driver of transformation. Our findings suggest that organizations reporting the strongest outcomes have invested first in data, knowledge and governance foundations, creating the context AI needs to operate effectively at scale.”
“As AI maturity increases, these foundational capabilities become increasingly important for long term value realization,” he added.
Customer experience emerged as the primary goal for 45 per cent of Achievers, ahead of revenue growth and cost cuts. Achievers scaled AI across roughly 60 per cent of core technology domains, using conversational copilots and dynamic knowledge bases, whereas Challengers and Aspirants remained limited to isolated pilots and traditional surveys.
Regarding operational roadblocks, 38 per cent of Achievers cited data quality, while over 40 per cent of Challengers and Aspirants pointed to governance, compliance, and change management constraints.
This article was generated from an automated news agency feed without modifications to text.
