It’s undeniable how AI has completely transformed the business landscape. From telecommunications to healthcare to financial services and beyond, the ways in which businesses across industries not only operate but also engage with their customers – especially those within service-centric industries – are rapidly evolving. This shift has introduced the need for deeply personalized interactions that understand customers on a more profound level and go beyond standard experiences – what we at Amdocs call personality engineering. But are businesses ready to deliver on its potential?

Thanks to AI, businesses are experiencing new opportunities for how they engage with customers and prospects, bringing traditional customer service experiences to the brink of perhaps the most impactful shift we’ve ever seen.  While AI is driving this metamorphosis, there’s a crown jewel that’s the true force ushering in an entirely new era of customer experience: agentic AI.

Agentic AI has quickly become the next power player in the AI explosion and rightfully so. Using sophisticated reasoning and iterative planning, agentic AI autonomously makes decisions, performs tasks, and can even solve complex problems, all without requiring human oversight. Agentic AI allows businesses to take their AI agents to the next level by bringing personalized interactions to each unique customer and scenario and the ability to also anticipate needs.

Gone are the days where AI agents are viewed as just mere technical systems to answer base-level questions. With agentic AI, agents are morphing into an extension of a brand’s identity as businesses now have the ability to design agents that take on the tone, and values, of their brand.

Powered with the ability to embody a brand’s identity and instantly customize every interaction – pulling from a treasure trove of historical data – agentic AI is allowing businesses to deliver truly authentic and personalized experiences in an entirely new way.

Demand for AI Agents is Rising 

Businesses aren’t the only ones seeing the benefits that agentic AI brings, consumers are becoming increasingly interested in engaging in these types of interactions. In fact, some consumers are actually starting to prefer agent interactions according to recent Amdocs’ findings which unveiled that when it comes to customer care and sales interactions, 45% of consumers said they would prefer interacting with personal AI agents, versus 35% who would rather keep their interactions solely with human agents.

Amdocs’ findings also uncovered that when it comes to AI agents, consumers want unique agents with nearly half (49%) expressing interest in customizing AI agent’s characteristics. Interestingly in addition to their desire for customizability, consumers also often hold AI agents to a higher standard than they do human representatives, with consumers expressing expectations for agents’ ability to demonstrate empathy (80%), professionalism (85%), quick issue resolution (87%), and first-time resolution (74%).

Two things are becoming abundantly clear when comes use of agentic AI in customer interactions. First, demand for these interactions is growing – and in some cases even preferred – meaning that the use of these agents is resonating well with consumers. Second, as this demand continues to rise, businesses must identify how they can successfully catapult themselves forward into the agentic AI era, while also ensuring they’re simultaneously meeting customers evolving expectations around AI agents.

With customer experiences being the foundation of brand loyalty, businesses are now entering uncharted territory as they look to navigate how to build and maintain loyalty in this agentic era. So how can they set themselves up for success?

The top 3 ways businesses can prepare for the agentic future

With agentic AI rapidly introducing a new branding paradigm, how businesses interact with customers will soon be completely redefined.

As this transformation nears, businesses must ask themselves a critical question: is their agentic AI strategy ready to support the future of personalized experiences for customers?

As businesses across industries ask themselves this question, there are three key considerations that they can use to help best prepare for the agentic era:

Embracing personality engineering: Every AI interaction a customer or lead has is now a touchpoint for brands. This means that now more than ever, brands must prioritize identifying ways to leverage AI in a way that not only best serves their customers, but that also allows them to differentiate and turn each interaction into an opportunity. Personality engineering, the intentional design behind how AI agents not only speak but also their ability to adapt to each unique customer and scenario, empowers brands with the ability to morph their agents into full on brand ambassadors. Brands that embrace personality engineering and take the time to carefully craft agents that embody their brand and possess the ability to tailor interactions far beyond traditional customer experience approaches, will come out on top.

Establishing new KPIs: As agentic AI completely redefines the business landscape, brands must ensure they’re keeping pace with this shift. We’re entering a unique time where what businesses once have considered core key performance indicators – KPIs – will no longer be an accurate measurement of success for agentic AI. Instead, brands must undergo a shift in their KPI paradigm, focusing instead on ways in which they can accurately track how their agentic approach is moving them toward their goals. For example, brands that’ve implemented agentic AI into their call centers should be measuring KPIs like average handling time and first-call resolution to get an accurate picture of agentic ROI.

Data education before GTM: As with any emerging technology, agentic AI places brands in a position where they must carefully consider how they can be innovative without opening the flood gates to new business challenges. When it comes to agentic AI, having the right data is essential which makes it imperative for brands to understand their data before they take their agentic offerings to market. Brands should adapt an agentic strategy that has human agents training AI agents to ensure that accurate data input and output is occurring prior to GTM. This approach can help offer businesses peace of mind knowing that agentic agents are training on and pulling data that’s accurate before the agents have even begun interacting with customers.

As agentic AI continues to take the world by storm, it’s time that businesses realize agentic AI isn’t a system that they deploy but rather a true extension of their brand. Businesses that take the time to properly prepare and leverage AI agents as brand ambassadors will not only enhance their customer experience but also solidify themselves as leaders in the agentic era.