By Steffen Thiel, Simone Schatto, Fabian Huhle, Fabian Neuen and Maryna Finkelshteyn

Artificial intelligence (AI) is knocking customer service out of the park, transforming this essential function not just for companies but for their customers, too. Unsurprisingly, the vast majority of firms have already implemented some form of AI-based technology in their dealings with customers. However, in many cases, they are using AI simply as an extra tool to assist human customer service agents, rather than fully integrating it into their operations. How can players exploit the true potential of AI for customer service, as we are beginning to see in Asia? We look at the coming revolution – and whether companies are ready to face the future.

Why is AI so challenging?

In late 2024 and early 2025, Roland Berger, in partnership with Potloc and TalentNeuron, carried out a comprehensive global survey of decision-makers in customer service departments – the biggest of its kind to date. To object of the survey was to gain a picture of how businesses currently use AI in customer service, The responses, from industry insiders at companies of all different shapes and sizes around the globe, reveal the challenges they are facing, where they think AI can help, how they already use AI in their day-to-day business and how ready they feel to take things to the next level.

What is the No. 1 challenge faced by customer service departments? More than half of respondents said it was meeting customer expectations. These are extremely diverse, ranging from the expectation that agents should be able to give immediate answers to inquiries about product availability and delivery times, to agents' ability to access the customer's full purchase history. Other challenging areas for customer service departments include dealing with legislation such as the European Union's General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) or anti-money laundering and know-your-customer rules, the latter a particular burden on banking and insurance companies. Companies also struggle with balancing cost and quality, and in the case of large customer databases, with personalization.

Bots to the rescue – but are they after our jobs?

The good news is that these are all areas that companies can address effectively with AI-based technology. Indeed, our respondents considered technology, automation and AI the most promising area for customer service solutions – replacing the previous trend towards offshoring and near-shoring. What is more, we appear to have reached a turning point in the implementation of AI: 83% of respondents said that AI would be highly important for customer services in the next three years, almost double the number who said it was highly important today. The adoption of AI in many companies is still in its infancy; as it develops further in the coming years, its implementation across industries is also likely to take off.

Of course, the issue on many customer service employees' minds is whether AI will put them out of a job. Over one-third of our respondents were of the opinion that AI will lead to job losses – but this is a much lower figure than that recorded by other studies. That said, AI will clearly change the type of work that human agents do. Standard day-to-day tasks will be automated, including dealing with customer inquiries, sharing information, taking orders and even directly communicating with customers. We estimate that just under one-third of tasks in customer services can already be automated today.

As the technology develops further, human agents will have to up their game, developing their technological skills and ability to work with AI. It is likely that around 30% of traditional jobs in customer service will disappear – most customer service leaders said they expected agents to be upskilled or move to new customer service roles rather than being laid off. Those traditional roles that do remain will be strongly supported by AI, making them easier for untrained people to handle effectively.

Industry readiness – a varied picture

How ready are companies for the coming revolution? The answer depends on which dimension we look at. For example, respondents feel well prepared in terms of using AI to improve their existing processes, but still have a long way to go on developing agile cross-functional teams, decentralized teams with P&L responsibility and outcome-based governance. We would classify around seven percent of companies overall as "innovators" when it comes to implementing AI in customer services, implying a major gap between the potential of AI and companies' preparedness to use it. Some industries are dragging their heels more than others; consumer goods, for instance, is much less ready for change than the retail and wholesale industry, where quickly adopting customer engagement solutions have long been the norm.

Overall, most industries are not yet in a position to fully utilize AI technology in their customer services. For these players and others, we recommend taking a structured approach to the transformation, ensuring that all aspects are covered. To read the full results of the survey and our detailed recommendations, sign up for the report below – and learn how you can fully embrace the potential of AI in your customer services.

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