Across the last decade, CX improvement was often framed as better channels: mobile apps, live chat, self-service portals, and more touchpoints. In 2026, industry leaders are describing something more fundamental: the starting point of the customer journey is relocating.
Gartner’s customer research reports that more than half of service journeys now begin on third-party platforms such as search engines, social platforms, and GenAI tools, rather than in brand-owned environments. Gartner’s language is revealing: these platforms are being treated as the “front door” to service.
Gartner’s February 2025 analysis points to customer preference for low-effort resolution and forecasts that by 2028, 70% of service journeys will begin and be resolved in conversational assistants built into mobile devices.
The implication is not simply that chat is popular. It is that customers increasingly expect to describe an intent in natural language and have the system do the navigation, the lookup, and the next step. In that world, a channel strategy that depends on customers learning your menus, apps, and pathways starts to feel outdated.
Inside organisations, the urgency is being driven from the top. Gartner reports that 91% of customer service and support leaders feel pressure from executive leadership to implement AI, with priorities centred on customer satisfaction, operational efficiency, and self-service success. Gartner also frames this as a tandem era where AI and human expertise are designed to work together, not as a simple replacement story.
McKinsey’s customer care research describes the current moment as different from prior tech waves because agentic AI changes who does the work and how work flows through the organisation.
Their argument is that organisations do not merely “add AI”; they redesign operating models so humans and AI agents collaborate, and so workflows can be executed end-to-end. McKinsey also describes a widening adoption gap between leaders and laggards, where leaders are beginning to report measurable gains in customer experience and productivity.
This is where many AI-first CX narratives become too optimistic. Consumer research is not describing a blank cheque of confidence. Pega’s research with YouGov reports that 64% of consumers are not confident in how businesses use GenAI in interactions, and more than half lack confidence organisations use GenAI responsibly.
The same study signals a preference pattern: customers still want human-led support available, particularly when interactions become complex or emotionally loaded.
Forrester’s 2026 customer service predictions make a complementary point from a different angle. The claim is not that AI will not matter, but that scaling it will expose foundational weaknesses: fragmented knowledge, inconsistent policies, and change management limits.
Forrester anticipates that service quality can dip while organisations wrestle with AI deployment complexity, and emphasises the need to improve data and knowledge foundations rather than expecting immediate “wow” transformations.
Africa’s CX reality changes how these global narratives land. GSMA’s Sub-Saharan Africa reporting highlights 27% mobile internet penetration by end-2023 and a 60% usage gap, where many people live within network coverage but are not using mobile internet due to barriers such as affordability and digital skills. In practical CX terms, conversational entry points can reduce complexity, but only if they are designed for low-bandwidth realities, device diversity, and cost sensitivity.
Conversational systems are only “conversational” if customers can use them naturally. GSMA’s October 2025 announcement of a continent-wide collaboration to develop inclusive African AI language models is notable because it positions language representation as an ecosystem priority, explicitly addressing gaps in data, compute, talent, and policy.
For organisations building service experiences, the insight is straightforward: conversational CX quality depends on local language support and culturally fluent understanding, not just model capability.
In South Africa, the AI-first story is already visible in high-volume customer environments. LivePerson’s Capitec case study reports large-scale conversational servicing, including 15 million client conversations in 2023 and 7 million via WhatsApp, alongside reported CSAT and first-contact resolution outcomes.
Whether a brand matches these exact metrics is less important than what the example illustrates: messaging channels are not fringe in South Africa, they are mainstream infrastructure for service.
Local CX research also centres the customer’s definition of value. The 2024 South African Digital CX Report highlights reliability (71%) as the leading factor driving repeat purchase in its surveyed set of loyalty drivers. This is a useful lens for AI-first CX: the promise of conversational automation is speed and convenience, but customers are signalling that the bar is not “AI presence”. It is dependable outcomes and credible follow-through.
South African indices reinforce that trust and relationship are not abstract concepts. Discovery Bank’s Ask Afrika Orange Index communication states it ranked first on emotional connection, relationship building, humanness, client trust, and brand advocacy within that benchmark context.
The relevance to the AI-first trend is not that every brand should copy a bank. It is that, in an environment moving toward machine-mediated interactions, measured trust and perceived humanness remain central to high CX performance.
Finally, South Africa’s rapid e-commerce growth is another pressure point shaping CX expectations. Mastercard’s Online Retail in South Africa 2025 report cites online retail expanding to R96 billion in 2024 (+35%) and projecting surpassing R130 billion by end-2025.
As digital commerce becomes routine, customers bring delivery, support, and recovery expectations into every category. AI-first CX is being deployed into a market where “I can’t find help” and “I have to repeat myself” are increasingly unacceptable.
Across Gartner’s channel forecasts, McKinsey’s operating-model view, Forrester’s foundation-first warning, GSMA’s inclusion lens, and South African benchmarks emphasising reliability and trust, the recurring questions are consistent:
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