The last four years have been a roller coaster for the retail industry. Dominant themes that have both rankled and engendered creativity include the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic, the continued movement to the cloud, the maturation of next-level AI technology, and dramatic geopolitical upheaval. Each component has presented both significant challenges and opportunities.

The contact center industry has been leveraging AI for years across all segments. This has greatly accelerated since 2022, first with conversational AI, then generative AI (GenAI), and now agentic AI. AI is being used extensively in retail customer care, encompassing:
-Onboarding and training
-Performance management
-Forecasting & scheduling, agent assistance
-Transcription
-Language translation
-Process automation
-Self-service
-Analytics

The use of AI is essential in retail, with variations based on specific use cases. AI is primarily used for generating content. In contrast, the primary purpose of agentic AI is reasoning, not content creation. Agentic AI results are driven by achieving goals. It can carry out a complex series of activities, including reasoning to create its own workflows and evolve based on feedback. With this subtle difference, solution providers and retailers are learning when to apply which type to further operational and CX goals.

The primary goals of this study are to determine implementation plans of interaction channels, applications, and solutions in the contact center environment in the retail industry and to understand purchase trends. It also investigates the factors that influence product selection.

Decision-makers and purchase decision influencers of retail contact centers (total n=166) were surveyed across business functions, including CXOs, managing directors, owners, senior management, middle management, and others.

Countries include Australia/New Zealand, Brazil, Germany, France, India, Mexico, the Philippines, the UAE, Israel, the U.K./Ireland, and the U.S.

Field work: January to February 2025
Respondents: Decision makers from the 106 Retail organizations
Study period: 2025 to 2027

Author: Alpa Shah