Most Contact Centers Have an AI Strategy — But Automation Execution Lags Far Behind

A new global survey of 400 contact center operators reveals a stark gap between AI ambition and AI reality. Most organizations have an AI strategy on paper. Few have acted on it.

The Contact Center Maturity Survey, conducted by SuccessKPI in partnership with CMSWire, finds that 82% of contact centers are still in either limited pilots (38%) or early adoption (44%). Meanwhile, 67% still rely on manual processes or limited workflow automation, and only 2.5% have achieved fully automated, AI-driven workflows.

Data readiness is the core problem. More than half of respondents — 53% — say their data is not organized or centralized enough to support AI use. Another 52% have limited or no integration across their reporting and analytics systems.

Key Takeaways

• U.S. adoption trails global peers: Only 10% of U.S. contact centers report broad AI adoption or full integration, compared to 24% in both the UK/Ireland and APAC regions.
• Hybrid models lack governance: As contact centers move toward hybrid human-and-AI agent workforces, most lack the governance frameworks needed to make those models effective.
• Omnichannel still fragmented: Despite years of investment, 40% of contact centers still deliver limited or disconnected customer journeys. Only 23% report a fully unified experience.

The report offers five recommendations: close the omnichannel gap, realign AI expectations to operational reality, establish AI governance structures, redefine agent performance metrics, and improve real-time operational intelligence.

The full benchmark report and interactive assessment are available at successkpi.com/cx-maturity-benchmark-2026.

Read the full article on The National Law Review