News Summary: By 2028, agentic AI is expected to handle 68% of all customer service and support interactions with technology vendors. As IT complexity grows, 92% of organizations emphasize that vendor support and services are more critical than ever. An overwhelming 93% predict agentic AI will deliver more personalized, proactive, and predictive services. Despite AI's rise, 89% of customers stress combining human connection with AI efficiency to optimize experiences. SAN JOSE, Calif. , May 27, 2025 — Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) released a global research report, "The Race to an Agentic Future: How Agentic AI Will Transform Customer Experience, " based on a survey of 7, 950 business and technical decision-makers across 30 countries. The report highlights agentic AI’s transformative potential in how technology vendors deliver services and support. Respondents are confident—88%—that agentic AI customer experiences from technology partners will help achieve organizational goals such as improving IT efficiency, resilience, security, speeding key projects, and maximizing IT investment value. The adoption of agentic AI-led customer experience—covering technical support, customer success, and professional services—is predicted to accelerate rapidly, with 68% of interactions expected to be agentic AI-driven within three years and more than half (56%) occurring within 12 months. This rapid evolution pressures vendors lagging in agentic AI development. Liz Centoni, Cisco’s EVP & Chief Customer Experience Officer, stated that agentic AI maturity is addressing persistent enterprise pain points, such as network misconfigurations, leading to smarter networks, enhanced security, and more productive teams. Leveraging four decades of data and customer trust, Cisco aims to deliver personalized, proactive, and predictive customer interactions, emphasizing the urgent need to accelerate progress. Traditionally, AI and automation have supported IT workflows but still required human oversight.

Agentic AI, characterized by autonomous AI agents with memory, task awareness, and independent reasoning capabilities, minimizes human intervention by learning from and adapting to environments to achieve outcomes autonomously. This shift allows customer experience professionals to focus on complex problem-solving, human-in-the-loop feedback for specific use-cases, and nurturing stronger customer relationships. The study stresses an urgent need for technology vendors to accelerate agentic AI adoption. Those failing to deploy agentic AI effectively, securely, and ethically risk deteriorating customer relationships, reputational harm, and higher churn rates. Conversely, vendors embracing agentic AI across the tech lifecycle will gain data-driven insights, support scalability, customer loyalty, and strategic differentiation—with 81% predicting competitive advantage for successful adopters. Key Findings: - Growing reliance on vendor support: 92% say vendor services are crucial amid increasing IT complexity. - Broad tech lifecycle applications: Over 80% see agentic AI benefits at all technology lifecycle stages, especially in customer and technical support, strategy, planning, and operations. - Significant benefits: Expectations include IT productivity boosts, time and cost savings, enhanced data analytics, troubleshooting, and digital transformation alignment. - Human connection remains vital: 96% value human relationships during support and services with B2B tech partners. - Non-negotiable governance: 99% insist on strong governance for ethical agentic AI use; 81% want vendors to transparently share their AI customer experience vision. For full details, read “The Race to an Agentic Future: How Agentic AI Will Transform Customer Experience. ” Additional Resources - Research Report - Executive Blog - Digital Newsroom About Cisco Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is a global technology leader revolutionizing connectivity and security in the AI era. For over 40 years, Cisco has securely connected the world. Its AI-powered solutions help customers, partners, and communities innovate, enhance productivity, and strengthen digital resilience. Committed to a connected and inclusive future, learn more at The Newsroom and follow @Cisco on X.