Gartner Customer Service & Support Conference: Day 1 Highlights

We are bringing you news and highlights from the Gartner Customer Service and Support Conference taking place today through tomorrow in Denver, CO. Below is a collection of the key announcements and insights coming out of the conference. 

On Day 1 from the conference, we are highlighting the Opening Keynote, the human-AI workforce and agentic AI in customer service and support.

Be sure to check this page throughout the day for updates.

• Gartner Survey Reveals Just 4% of Customer Service Leaders Have Achieved The Expected ROI of Their AI Initiatives
• Gartner Survey Finds 21% of Service and Support Leaders Have Reduced Human Agent Headcount Because of AI

Presented by Christopher Sladdin, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner 

As customer service and support organizations increase spending on AI, many are struggling to generate meaningful returns. During the opening keynote , Christopher Sladdin, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, outlined how "AI-forward" organizations are achieving greater results by focusing AI on customer value creation, building connected AI portfolios and designing a value-centered workforce that thrives in an AI-enabled future.

• “The average organization is spending 12% of its customer service budget on AI, yet service leaders report positive returns only a quarter of the time. If we keep pursuing AI primarily for cost reduction, the math simply doesn’t work.” 

• “AI-forward organizations don’t ask, ‘How can we reduce costs with AI?’ They ask, ‘How can we create more value for customers?’”  

• “AI-forward organizations invest nearly 1.8x as much in data and knowledge foundations as they do in AI use cases themselves.” 

• “Start thinking in terms of opportunities to create value. Don’t ask, ‘How can I remove humans from the interaction?' Instead, ask where human involvement can create disproportionate value.” 

• “If we’re going to see what AI can really do, we have to redesign our strategy, investments and workforce.” 

   

  Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Christopher Sladdin by contacting Jordan Brackenbury-Cox at jordan.brackenbury@gartner.com.

   

  Learn more in the Gartner press release "Gartner Survey Reveals Just 4% of Customer Service Leaders Have Achieved The Expected ROI of Their AI Initiatives".

Presented by Kathy Ross, VP Analyst, Gartner

As organizations accelerate AI adoption across customer service and support, many are still struggling to maximize the value of their technology investments. In this session, Kathy Ross, VP Analyst at Gartner, explained how leaders can unlock greater business impact by strategically combining AI capabilities across the entire customer interaction lifecycle.

• "Too many organizations are implementing AI one use case at a time. The real opportunity comes from orchestrating AI capabilities across the entire customer interaction lifecycle." 

• "To maximize AI's impact, leaders need a strategic framework that examines what happens before, during and after every customer interaction, then aligns AI capabilities to each stage."

• "When agents promote digital and self-service tools, customers are 2x more likely to begin with those channels during their next interaction. That's why AI-enabled context sharing before an interaction matters so much: it reveals customer behaviors and helps agents reinforce digital-first habits, creating value for customers and organizations." 

• "Combining customer identification, authentication, intent recognition and agent assist capabilities can transform service performance."

• "The goal of AI isn't simply to reduce handle time. Sometimes creating more value for customers means intentionally spending more time in the interaction when it strengthens loyalty, trust and future business outcomes."

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Kathy Ross by contacting Jordan Brackenbury-Cox at jordan.brackenbury@gartner.com.

Presented by Daniel O'Sullivan, Senior Director Analyst, Gartner

Agentic AI is rapidly emerging as the next major frontier for customer service transformation, but many organizations risk repeating the mistakes made during the initial wave of generative AI adoption. In this session, Daniel O'Sullivan, Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, argued that AI alone is not a strategy and that successful organizations will be those that move deliberately, focusing on business outcomes before deploying technology.

• “AI alone is not a strategy.” 

• “The only defensible win condition for agentic AI is financial return. Service leaders must be able to clearly identify whether they are saving money, driving growth, or both, and be specific about the value levers they intend to pull.”

• “The best agentic AI use cases sit at the intersection of contextual complexity, workflow variability and the need for action. If a problem can be solved without agentic AI, it probably should be.” 

• “We are already seeing significant results from agentic AI deployments. One healthcare organization eliminated 160,000 calls annually, a logistics provider reduced response times from 17 minutes to 32 seconds, and an insurer cut claims processing times from days to hours.” 

• “Go-live is only the first 10% of the journey. The organizations generating the most value invest heavily in ongoing optimization, AI-ready data, governance, knowledge management, and the people required to continuously improve performance.” 

Journalists can receive additional information and/or request an interview with Daniel O'Sullivan by contacting Jordan Brackenbury-Cox at jordan.brackenbury@gartner.com.