Australia & New Zealand lead in agentic AI adoption

Businesses in Australia and New Zealand are adopting agentic AI for customer service at rates above global and regional averages, according to Genesys's latest customer experience study.

Among customer experience leaders in Australia and New Zealand, 39% said deploying agentic AI is critical, compared with 22% globally and 21% across Asia Pacific. The study also found that 48% of organisations in the region already use agentic AI virtual agents for customer interactions.

Adoption plans are also advancing quickly. Nearly nine in 10 CX leaders in Australia and New Zealand expect autonomous AI agents to orchestrate customer experiences within the next three years, while 85% said AI investment is critical or very influential in meeting their strategic customer experience goals.

Over the next 12 months, organisations in Australia and New Zealand expect to allocate 30% of their customer experience budgets to AI-based customer experience tools.

These findings come amid signs of strain in customer service performance. More than one in five consumers in Australia and New Zealand said they had waited more than an hour to speak with a human customer support representative, compared with a global average of 5%.

Customers also reported repeated handovers and disconnected service. While 96% of consumers expect information to be remembered across channels, 39% of organisations do not automatically pass information between virtual and human agents.

That gap is reflected in consumer feedback. The study found that 41% of consumers in Australia and New Zealand had to repeat themselves to different human agents in the past 12 months, above the global figure of 33%. Another 23% said they had to repeat a conversation from a virtual agent to a human agent.

Consumer pressure

The report suggests customer tolerance for poor service remains low. Some 90% of consumers in Australia and New Zealand said every organisation should deliver experiences on par with the best experience they have had, and 95% said a company is only as good as its customer service.

Poor service also carries commercial risk. Sixty-nine per cent of consumers said they would switch to a competitor after three or fewer bad experiences with a brand, while 19% said a single bad experience would be enough to make them leave.

At the same time, consumers appear open to a larger role for AI if it improves outcomes. Nearly two-thirds, or 62%, said they do not care who resolves their issue as long as it is solved quickly and completely, and 97% said they value efficiency as much as empathy.

One-third of consumers said they are comfortable with AI making decisions on their behalf if it improves speed and resolution. Yet that willingness has limits: 61% said they would react negatively if they could not connect with a human agent after dealing with a virtual agent or chatbot.

Operational hurdles

The research points to internal barriers as companies try to expand AI in customer operations. Maintaining service quality with ageing infrastructure is now the top internal operational challenge for CX leaders in Australia and New Zealand, according to Genesys.

Budget pressure is also affecting progress. Combined with legacy systems, those constraints are making it harder for organisations to scale AI tools and create smoother experiences across channels, the study found.

Genesys surveyed 5,811 consumers and 1,560 CX and business leaders in more than 20 countries. That included 1,426 consumers and 508 CX leader respondents across Asia Pacific.

The business sample covered airlines, automotive, banking, government, healthcare, insurance, manufacturing, media and entertainment, professional services, retail, travel and hospitality, technology, telecommunications, and utilities.

Mark Buckley, Vice President, Australia & New Zealand, Genesys, said the results showed how quickly expectations are changing in the region.

"Customer expectations are rising rapidly across Australia and New Zealand, creating an opportunity for organisations to rethink how they deliver customer experiences.

"As agentic AI becomes more deeply embedded in customer engagement, organisations that can orchestrate AI, human expertise, customer data, and enterprise systems around a single customer journey will be best positioned to reduce customer effort, deliver more seamless and personalised experiences, and build stronger customer trust and loyalty," Buckley said.