Moving beyond the Gen AI paradox in customer service - How to build a path forward

Insights from McKinsey’s latest CEO Playbook applied to Customer Service and Support

I’ve seen plenty of technologies promise to revolutionize how we serve customers. Most delivered incremental gains at best. McKinsey’s new research on agentic AI feels different—it’s a blueprint for what could be the most significant transformation customer service will see in our lifetime.

The numbers are sobering: 78% of companies deploy gen AI, yet 80% see zero business impact. We’re all trapped in what McKinsey calls the “gen AI paradox,” deploying chatbots and copilots that feel productive but deliver marginal gains. Meanwhile, 90% of transformative AI use cases remain stuck in pilot purgatory.

Here’s what’s coming for customer service leaders: AI agents that don’t just respond to tickets—they proactively monitor customer health, predict issues before they escalate, orchestrate resolutions across multiple systems, and adapt in real-time based on customer context. Think autonomous customer success managers running 24/7.

McKinsey’s case studies reveal the magnitude of this opportunity. One call center reimagined around agent autonomy achieved 80% autonomous resolution rates with 60-90% faster resolution times. That’s not incremental improvement—that’s competitive advantage that compounds daily.

This aligns with recent findings from BCG showing companies with mature AI strategies outperform peers by 30% in customer satisfaction metrics, while Deloitte reports that organizations treating AI as a business transformation (not just tech deployment) see 3x higher ROI.

Your Strategic Playbook:

1. Audit Your Current State Ruthlessly
Map every customer journey touchpoint. Where are you still using humans for data-heavy, rule-based work? Those are your agent opportunities. McKinsey’s framework suggests starting with high-volume, cross-functional processes—think order management, billing disputes, or technical troubleshooting.

2. Build Your Agentic Architecture Foundation
Your current tech stack wasn’t designed for autonomous agents. Invest in what McKinsey calls the “agentic AI mesh”—a composable, vendor-agnostic platform that orchestrates multiple agents safely. This infrastructure becomes your competitive moat.

3. Redesign Processes, Don’t Automate Broken Ones
Stop asking “Where can AI help in this workflow?” Start asking “What would this process look like if agents handled 70% of it?” Reimagine your entire customer resolution engine around agent capabilities: parallel processing, elastic scaling, continuous learning.

4. Establish Cross-Functional Transformation Squads
Move beyond the “AI center of excellence” model. Form permanent squads combining customer operations experts, process designers, AI engineers, and data specialists. These teams own end-to-end transformation, not just pilot programs.

5. Prepare Your Team for Human-Agent Collaboration
Your agents will elevate humans to strategic roles: exception handling, complex relationship management, and continuous improvement. Start reskilling now.

The window for competitive advantage is wide open. While others pilot chatbots, you can be building autonomous customer success engines that deliver personalized, proactive experiences at infinite scale.

The transformation starts with one question: How will you harness this revolution to redefine customer service excellence?

Credit: McKinsey QuantumBlack team
🔗 https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/quantumblack/our-insights/seizing-the-agentic-ai-advantage

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