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Investment and adoption in generative and agentic AI tools shows no signs of slowing down anytime soon. AI market value is projected to increase to nearly $5 trillion by 2033. Data from the most recent CMSWire State of the Digital Customer Experience report shows that 31% of organizations consider AI and machine learning capabilities a current DCX investment priority.
AI (as a whole category) is also a priority for companies trying to boost employee enablement. According to data from the Reworked State of the Digital Workplace report, 78% plan to prioritize AI tool adoption (such as chatbots or integrated workflows) while 59% plan to focus on generative AI in the coming year.
Yet there are signs that many organizations struggle to understand how to best implement and generate ROI from any AI advancements. In the same State of the Digital Customer Experience report, only 32% of organizations call their use of AI “Extensive” or regularly used in many parts of their CX strategy. This number is unchanged from 2022. Further, research suggests that only 5% of all generative AI initiatives demonstrate any ROI.
Yet the realities around AI implementation are more nuanced than headlines might suggest. In many ways, preparing your organization for AI isn’t much different from preparing for any new digital process. The biggest difference is the larger consequences of failure. Because AI by definition allows you to scale processes, any mistakes made by AI are amplified. This makes trust and transparency paramount to any initiative, no matter the industry.
To set your organization up for success in 2026, be intentional about what it’s trying to use AI for, and approach adoption as a tool to improve performance and increase efficiency, rather than replacing workers.
Table of Contents
- Be Intentional About Your Use Cases
- Keep Humans In the Loop; Augment, Don’t Replace
- Preparing For the Year Ahead in AI in 2026
Be Intentional About Your Use Cases
Targeted use cases bring about intentional results. What are you trying to accomplish? Efficiency gains? Enhancing customer satisfaction? Improving the work of employees or the lives of customers? Rather than toss AI at every conceivable problem, focus instead on the potential value an AI solution could deliver. This will allow the team running your AI initiative to demonstrate and validate results.
AI has the potential to transform a number of areas related to both the customer and employee experiences. According to CMSWire research, the top 3 areas organizations expect AI to have the greatest impact on the customer experience are as follows:
- Improving customer retention
- Freeing staff to engage in higher-level and complex tasks
- Helping organization solve their customers’ problems faster
Meanwhile, research in the Reworked State of the Digital Workplace report identifies the top areas where AI can impact the employee experience as the following:
- Automating simple or repetitive processes
- Helping employees find right content, people or apps they need to get the job done
- Helping to improve document management tasks, such as collaboration, document organization or data storage
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All of these employee experience improvements can go a long way toward improving customer retention, since productive and engaged workers are better prepared to solve challenging customer issues.
Assess Your Capabilities
Are you ready for an AI solution? Ask yourself these questions:
- Have you identified the specific business problems you’re trying to solve with AI?
- Have you developed and prioritized use cases with expected outcomes?
- Do you have buy-in for your use cases across the organization?
- Is your leadership ready for AI transformation?
- Have you scoped identified use cases for business value and feasibility with a pilot executive plan?
Keep Humans In the Loop; Augment, Don’t Replace
Moving into 2026, organizations will need to be intentional around generative AI adoption. One way organizations can ensure their AI initiatives are successful is by keeping people front and center of any rollout. Successful AI complements the human aspect of customer service. At the same time businesses are trying to identify what AI can be used for, your customers still expect great, personalized experiences, regardless of the channel they’re in.
AI should be used to enhance that human connection. While AI can help with automation and some of your omnichannel transactions, it’s really a complement to your existing processes. Think about it. Process and efficiency improvements for contact center agents can increase first contact resolution time. AI can scale self-service, but if there comes a point where your customers want to talk to a human, they can.
Successful AI adoption will require training and employee buy-in to ensure a successful implementation. In 2026, it won’t be enough to just push AI tools to employees without buy-in. Employees need time to integrate any new AI tool into their workflows and see firsthand how the tool can create process efficiencies.
Preparing For the Year Ahead in AI in 2026
A: Agentic and generative AI programs will become more tightly integrated into processes and forkflows. At the same time, there will be increased demand for these programs to be deployed responsibly and show demonstrable ROI.
A: Having intentional use cases and strong leadership buy-in will have the biggest impact on the success of an AI initiative.
A: Clear goals and KPIs that you can directly tie back to AI usage are a must here. Improved customer retention, increased employee engagement and higher productivity levels are all examples of specific goals AI can be used to improve.
Successful AI implementation recognizes more than just the tech component. The organizations who are having the most success with AI initiatives are the ones who are thoughtfully and intentionally integrating it into their workflows. Clear goals, identified metrics and company and leadership buy-in are all components of an initiative that’s set up for success.
See how Conduent can optimize your AI initiatives at conduent.com.
