EY Report Highlights Disparities in AI Adoption Outcomes Within Customer Service

A new report by EY India indicates that enterprises securing the highest value from artificial intelligence in customer service achieve up to 50 per cent or higher improvements across core key performance indicators. However, the study points out that while technology adoption has become widespread, the generation of actual business value remains uneven across organizations.

The research classifies enterprises into three distinct categories based on their performance outcomes. 'Achievers' account for 23 per cent of respondents and secure high or very high value. 'Challengers' make up 33 per cent of enterprises and experience moderate returns, while 'Aspirants' form the remaining 44 per cent, recording low or very low returns from their implementations.

According to the findings, Achievers regularly register gains ranging from 25 per cent to over 50 per cent. These improvements span core metrics such as customer experience, revenue uplift, average handle time, and agent productivity. In contrast, Challengers experience progress between 10 per cent and 25 per cent, whereas Aspirants record less than 10 per cent improvement or track no metrics at all.

Preeti Anand, Partner for Business Consulting at EY India, noted that value realisation remains uneven as many organizations continue to struggle with moving beyond fragmented use cases. She stated that organizations realizing the greatest value are building strong foundations, integrating AI across workflows, and measuring success through tangible business outcomes.

Technology deployment patterns reveal sharp contrasts across different customer service lifecycles. Voice AI has reached scaled deployments among 91 per cent of Achievers, with 45 per cent utilizing rules-based bots and 37 per cent running advanced AI-driven intent prioritisation systems. Meanwhile, more than 80 per cent of Challengers and Aspirants continue to rely on human personnel or basic menu-driven interactive voice response systems.

Arun Nagarajan, Partner for Technology Consulting at EY India, emphasized that strong outcomes depend on foundational investments. He explained that organizations reporting the strongest results have invested first in data, knowledge, and governance foundations to provide the context needed for AI to operate effectively at scale.

Customer experience emerged as the primary goal for 45 per cent of Achievers, taking precedence over revenue growth and cost cuts. Achievers have scaled AI across approximately 60 per cent of core technology domains using conversational copilots and dynamic knowledge bases. On the other hand, Challengers and Aspirants remain constrained to isolated pilots and traditional surveys.

Regarding operational roadblocks, 38 per cent of Achievers cited data quality as a primary challenge. Conversely, over 40 per cent of Challengers and Aspirants pointed to governance, compliance, and change management constraints as major barriers to their AI initiatives.

"This EY report clearly demonstrates that simply deploying artificial intelligence tools is not enough to guarantee business success. The stark contrast between Achievers and Aspirants highlights that long-term value comes from foundational readiness—specifically data quality, strong governance, and seamless workflow integration. For growing businesses and startups looking to adopt emerging technologies, the takeaway is clear: sustainable returns require a strategic focus on underlying infrastructure rather than relying on isolated tech pilots." — Dr. Shishir Gupta, Founder & CEO, StartupLanes