Only 4% of customer service organisations have achieved the return on investment (ROI) they expected from artificial intelligence initiatives, according to new research, highlighting a significant gap between AI investment and measurable business value.
The findings, based on a Gartner survey of 275 customer service and support leaders conducted between July and August 2026, suggest that many organisations are struggling to translate AI adoption into meaningful operational and customer experience improvements.
Presented at the Gartner Customer Service & Support Conference, the research identifies three priorities for organisations seeking to maximise the value of AI: focusing on customer outcomes, developing coordinated AI investment portfolios and redesigning teams around human and machine capabilities.
Christopher Sladdin (pictured), Senior Director Analyst at Gartner, said: “While customer service leaders are eager to accelerate their use of AI, many are failing to unlock its value.”
Rather than concentrating primarily on reducing costs through automation, Gartner recommends using AI to analyse customer interactions at scale, identify recurring service problems and uncover opportunities to improve customer satisfaction and operational performance.
The research also suggests that contact centres should move away from deploying isolated AI applications towards interconnected portfolios aligned with wider business objectives.
Gartner predicts that by 2028, organisations adopting this portfolio approach will achieve twice the business value of those pursuing standalone AI use cases.
However, achieving these benefits will require greater investment in supporting infrastructure, particularly data quality and knowledge management.
According to Gartner, AI-forward organisations invest nearly 1.8 times more in these underlying foundations than in the AI applications themselves.
Workforce transformation is another critical consideration, with Gartner arguing that organisations must rethink how employees and AI systems work together rather than simply introducing automation into existing processes.
“Leaders must stop asking how they remove humans from interactions and instead ask where their involvement creates disproportionate value for customers,” Sladdin said.
For contact centre and customer service leaders, the analysis underlines the importance of establishing clear performance measures for AI investments, including customer outcomes, service quality and operational efficiency.
They also suggest that achieving sustainable returns will depend on integrating AI into broader customer experience strategies, supported by effective data management, workforce development and redesigned service processes.
As AI adoption accelerates, Gartner’s research indicates that deploying more technology alone will not guarantee better results. Instead, organisations will need to demonstrate how their investments deliver measurable improvements for customers and the business.
