Today’s customers want answers—fast, relevant, and human-like. Yet, many organisations remain stuck in outdated support models, leading to frustrated customers, burned-out agents, and plunging satisfaction scores. Info-Tech Research Group has released its latest report to offer a roadmap for how AI can solve these chronic challenges and elevate customer and agent experience.
“Today’s customers are quick to leave after just one poor experience. At the same time, high-stress levels among agents lead to burnout and reduced productivity. AI in customer service should enhance customer and employee experience,” says Terra Higginson, principal research director at Info-Tech Research Group. “Whether you’re a customer or an agent, this 4th revolution in customer service is fundamentally about putting people first.”
The research tracks the evolution of customer service across four key eras, highlighting how each stage brought new capabilities and new constraints. The early days of high-touch phone support offered personalisation but came with high costs. The offshore call centre wave that followed focused on cost-cutting, often at the expense of empathy and efficiency.
Then came the rise of scripted automation and rigid chatbots: faster, but often frustratingly impersonal. According to Info-Tech, we are entering a new chapter—where AI becomes the linchpin of meaningful, real-time, scalable customer engagement.
Unlike previous tools, modern AI can handle complex customer needs dynamically. It adapts in real time, learns from interactions, and doesn’t rely on hardcoded scripts. AI enables service that feels personalised at scale with faster resolutions, smarter routing, and drastically reduced customer effort, all without sacrificing the human touch.
What to expect in the future?
Info-Tech predicts AI will no longer be a differentiator but a standard feature in customer service platforms. Moreover, AI isn’t expected to replace agents, but rather to work alongside them—streamlining routine tasks, offering decision support, and freeing them to focus on nuanced, high-empathy conversations. This could radically reduce agent burnout while boosting performance and retention.
The future also includes smarter voice interactions driven by conversational AI and natural language processing. As technology matures, these voice experiences will feel increasingly fluid and intuitive—more like speaking to a well-informed human than navigating a robotic phone tree. With customer service platforms moving toward model-agnostic AI ecosystems, businesses will soon have the flexibility to deploy the most effective AI tools for each unique customer moment.
Far from depersonalising service, Info-Tech’s research argues that AI is the key to making it more human again, replacing frustration with fluidity and inefficiency with insight. The fourth revolution in customer experience isn’t about machines taking over. It’s about giving customers and agents the tools they need to thrive.