Contact Center AI Trends in 2025

Contact centers are undergoing a massive transformation. Due to Covid-19, call centers took a hit, as call volume increased and the amount of customer service agents decreased. Incoming calls rose by nearly 300% during the first few months of the pandemic, resulting in a rise of hold times and escalations. For reference, escalations are when calls are sent to human agents or other support representatives.

With about 90% of contact centers migrating to remote and hybrid workplace models since the beginning of the pandemic, companies are investing in new contact center technologies that allow them to provide high quality and personalized customer service experiences.

In response to this changing landscape, many companies turn to contact center artificial intelligence (AI) to power customer service operations. Below are six contact center AI trends that transform customer service and experience.

Top Contact Center Artificial Intelligence Trends

Emergent technologies are dramatically changing the contact center industry, from hiring to retention to the nature of the work. Here we will discuss some of the most predominant trends that are likely going to affect most contact center operations, disrupting the markets and creating new opportunities. 

1. AI for Contact Centers Alleviates Staffing Shortages

Labor shortages were yet another side effect of the pandemic, and many industries have found it difficult to manage high call volumes with low volumes of agents. Many businesses are turning to AI to account for gaps within their workforces.

Back in 2022, more than 50 million workers in the US quit their job. While the statistics around the subject are improving during the last couple of years one thing remains certain: the nature of work is changing and AI has a massive role to play in the matter.  

“AI is already beginning to help fill skills shortages of the existing workforce through career transition support tools,” Rob Jekielek, managing director with Harris Poll stated. “AI is also helping employees do their existing and evolving jobs better and faster using digital assistants and in-house AI-driven training programs.”

Despite this tension between the great resignation vs. the great reshuffle, contact centers can use AI technologies to alleviate staffing shortages by allowing their workforce to focus on work that is meaningful instead of repetitive. With a conversational AI partner that empowers agents and augments their capacities they can focus on handling complex interactions instead of playing a volume game that never seems to end. 

2. AI for Contact Centers Meets Nuances of Human Conversation

When customers interact with contact center AI tech, it's important that the solutions are competent, intelligent, and intuitive because those nuances inform the perceived quality of service. Therefore, utilizing AI solutions that are perceptive to caller intent, language, and sentiment is vital.

Today, not only do AI applications accurately understand what callers are saying, but also how they are saying it and the context of the inquiry. Mosaicx's use of natural language processing, machine learning, and reinforcement learning helps AI agents learn and improve over time. This improvement over time allows businesses to deploy customer service agents that can understand the nuances of human conversation and deliver a seamless experience.

Contact center AI achieves nuances of human conversation because it can pick-up on tone of voice, inflection, etc., to detect mood and modify behavior accordingly. Understanding nuances and serving customers on a case-by-case basis improves overall experience and satisfaction.

3. Contact Center AI Expands Self-Service CX

One reason contact centers might embrace AI is to enable self-service, which can decrease wait times and offer 24/7 access to support. Self-service is a feature that customers want. For example, 73% of customers prefer to solve issues on their own. Companies that implement self-service capabilities can deliver on these customer demands and improve customer experience (CX).

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Self-service delivers customer support more quickly and efficiently since customers don’t have to wait for a human agent. Traditional tools for self-service include chatbots and interactive voice response (IVR) systems. But trends in contact center AI have led to the development of a new tool: intelligent virtual agents (IVA).

Like chatbots and IVR, an IVA accepts text or voice messages to allow customers to receive immediate help. Unlike these two predecessors, IVA adds a layer of AI, allowing it to understand nearly anything the user says. So instead of listening and responding to menu items, a user can freely state their issue in their own words.

This freedom greatly improves customers' use of self-service options. The movement to self-service also allows businesses increased service capacity and improves existing employee workloads. As customers experience simple self-service, they will expect it from every organization.

4. 24/7 Customer Service is the Expectation

Contact center AI that allows for self-service means that help is available to customers during every hour of the day. AI does not need to sleep or take breaks, so they are incredibly beneficial for companies to utilize in handling basic inquiries.

These 24/7 capabilities allow companies to strategically staff shifts for 24/7 service, taking a majority of the weight off of individuals expected to be on-call throughout all hours of the night. Utilizing AI for 24 hour contact service assists companies in allowing less irregular work hours for employees, yet allowing customers to still receive help whenever they need.

Contact center AI technology’s 365 days a year, seven days a week, and 24 hours a day availability is another offering of convenience and satisfaction for customers, adding to the value AI provides for contact centers.

This 24/7 service may increase the number of customer interactions, but well-designed AI can handle the volume in stride.

5. Contact Center AI Pricing is Cost-Effective

Like any new technology investment, businesses might be wary of contact center AI pricing. However, research shows that investing in quality AI for contact centers will save businesses money and increase the quality of service provided over time. Contact center AI also helps generate revenue by allowing for allocation of employee hours to go toward other key business functions.

By 2030, 45% of total economic gains will be thanks to product enhancements, such as AI integration, that will stimulate consumer demand.

Mosaicx, for instance, is a transactional technology, so you pay only for productive time, and there are no overhead fees. The technology also follows a build once, deploy everywhere model that allows business to scale contact center support as demands change. Additionally, companies gain valuable insights into customer data through AI-enabled contact center solutions that can inform customer engagement strategies and related investments into these areas.

6. Contact Center AI Technology is a Competitive Advantage

The majority of customers (66%) expect businesses to understand their needs. Therefore, a businesses' ability to provide personalized service increases customer satisfaction and retention. With the quality of today’s contact center AI, its 24-hour self-service options, and customers desiring to solve issues at any time and on their own, the utilization of AI is a star addition to the contact center team.

AI for contact centers are intuitive and accurate, and help businesses deliver experiences that meet customers' demands. Contact center AI technology also helps mitigate CX stressors, such as long hold times and repetitive questions. Businesses that utilize AI for contact centers experience greater year-over-year revenue and increased customer profit margins. This increased revenue is achieved through the adoption of innovative AI technologies, which allows businesses to get a step ahead both financially and against competitors.

As contact center AI technology continues to grow in use and become the new industry standard, companies who opt out may experience a decrease in customer retention and satisfaction and find it challenging to keep up with competitors that do embrace this technology,

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on contact center operations. With an increase of nearly 300% in incoming calls during the initial months of the pandemic, hold times and escalations have become a common occurrence.

To adapt to the changing landscape, many companies have shifted to remote and hybrid workplace models, leading to investments in new contact center technologies. Contact center artificial intelligence (AI) has emerged as a powerful tool to ensure high-quality and personalized customer service experiences.

One of the key benefits of AI in contact centers is its ability to alleviate staffing shortages. As labor shortages have become prevalent, AI technology fills the gaps in the workforce, allowing businesses to manage high call volumes with fewer agents.

8. Acceptance Related to Ethical and Privacy Concerns

According to an IBM survey, 85% of consumers say that organizations should factor in ethics as they use AI to tackle society’s problems. When it comes to contact centers, there are plenty of concerns and potential issues regarding ethics and privacy that must be addressed to ensure organizations meet their goals while also ensuring users are safe. 

Luckily, the research and development around this subject have drastically improved during the last couple of years, leading to private artificial intelligence systems that ensure information is always safe and compliant. While not all providers follow the same rigorous standards, there are providers like Mosaicx where your data is always secure, keeping users safe and allowing organizations to prevent potential compliance or privacy issues. 

9. Omnichannel Customer Support

Customers should be able to have an articulate conversation with customer support service lines without explaining themselves multiple times across channels or in multiple touchpoints. While many organizations have already built protocols to meet this expectation, AI simplifies the process by automating various data management processes without additional effort.

Omnichannel support helps contact center management improve documentation processes, improve user traceability, and allow users to experience a more streamlined service. It also reduces operational overheads, satisfaction scores, and employee churn issues. 

How Artificial Intelligence (AI) is Transforming Traditional Contact Centers

Traditional contact centers, like many other industries, are radically changing with AI technologies. While previously, the primary way to provide excellent customer service was to exclusively use human agents, today, due to conversational AI technologies, users expect to be able to solve problems by themselves, alleviating workloads and accelerating first-call resolutions.

While there are detractors in the industry, most brands using AI technologies to augment their workforce abilities have experienced a massive advantage. It is no surprise that Gartner predicts that 80% of customer service and support organizations will be applying generative AI technology in some form to improve agent productivity and customer experience (CX). 

With AI, productivity, internal operations, and efficiency, as well as end-user satisfaction and experience, improve. That is not to say that traditional contact center best practices are obsolete, but rather that with the addition of technology that reshapes the industry, organizations, employees, and customers can improve their interactions. 

How to Select the Best Contact Center AI Solution/Software

The AI market for contact centers is saturated with options and specialties. Selecting the best provider for your particular needs is a process that should be thoroughly researched. Prioritize whatever matters and better aligns with your corporate KPIs. 

Evaluate the AI Capabilities

Not all artificial intelligence providers have the same expertise or technological capabilities. The first step internal teams must consider when finding a provider is ensuring the technological capabilities match their needs. In some cases, it might mean a more advanced large language model to provide more nuanced answers, a compliant-first provider, or, in some other cases, a much simpler tech stack. Whatever it is, make sure the provider does what you need it to do with a little internal technical work and debt. 

Don’t Overlook Scalability and Flexibility

Multiple smaller startups incorporating AI can deploy solutions in a faster fashion. However, once your enterprise scales, or if you require more ad-hoc solutions and integrations, the process may not be as streamlined as you imagined. Scale and flexibility matter, especially if you run a large organization that needs to meet multiple standards across teams at any given time. 

Make the Solution User-Friendly

Being able to actually use your AI products is just as important as the functionality they provide. Remember that people across teams will need to use this product frequently. It is generally recommended that you be able to use it without having to send a ticket to IT for any small hurdle. 

Analyze the Costs and ROI

The AI solutions market for contact centers is massive. However, not all options have the same functionality, integration capabilities, usability, and cost. Considering all of these variables before moving forward with any provider is necessary, especially if you want to determine the ROI based on how helpful the product is. In other words, while going for the less expensive product may seem intuitive, you may sacrifice functionality, service, and usability, leading to a lower ROI. 

Vendor’s Experience and Specialty Matters

Not all AI vendors have the same level of expertise and experience. In the AI era, building products are amplified, and the time required to produce a functional prototype is shorter. As a result, new products and options are more abundant than ever, making it more challenging to know which provider is best for your business. When choosing an AI provider, considering the knowledge of the contact center industry, years of experience, and an understanding of this vertical helps stakeholders make an informed decision. 

How to Implement Contact Center AI in 2025

Implementing AI in contact centers is a process that must be thorough and well-researched. While the specific features and steps required to integrate AI change according to the needs of each contact center, these are some of the most essential features to consider when implementing AI in a contact center:

• Integration Capabilities: Given the complex tech stack contact centers must manage, integration capabilities matter. If AI products require too many technical requirements to work in your company, their deployment and development may be too slow, leading to inefficiencies.
• Usability: The product you buy should be easy to use and update. Technically complex products that heavily require IT resources or are too difficult to use for your workforce may not have the impact you desire. 
• Compliance: Ensuring the information you manage is safe and complies with your particular needs is vital when implementing AI. Not all providers have the same capabilities, potentially leading to fines and lawsuits. 
• Service: For enterprise-level businesses, having access to dedicated service teams that help you solve any problems is essential. Implementing AI is just the beginning of a partnership, and knowing you can count on your provider for the long run matters.

Ready to Use Contact Center AI for Your Business?

The trends discussed above can be a roadmap for company acceleration within the industry, as well as a tool to enhance customer service and experience. Utilizing AI for contact centers helps future-proof businesses, meets and understands customer needs, is cost-effective, and adds a competitive edge.

Businesses that integrate these contact center AI trends into their CX strategies will build resiliency as they embrace the latest technology, alleviate staffing shortages, and prioritize the customer experience. For examples of how companies are using customer service AI today, read our blog about 21 ways to use AI customer service.