The use of Artificial Intelligence is revolutionising customer service, with the aim of integrating it being to enhance and transform, but never replace humans. While it’s difficult to be sure what’s next for AI, it’s crucial we stay informed and proactive about what’s on the horizon.
According to a recent McKinsey survey, AI could potentially increase efficiency in businesses by 40% and reduce operational costs by 30% – so it’s unsurprising that businesses are finding ways to integrate AI into their systems.
AI customer service provider, Resolvable, has revealed the five projected AI customer service trends expected to dominate in 2026, explaining the importance of understanding how customer expectations, operational needs, and AI capabilities will converge over the next 12 months.
Jonny Murphy-Campbell, Commercial Director at Resolvable, explains the importance of staying ahead of the curve with what’s next: “It’s difficult to know what’s next for AI and its integration, but not impossible. We can retrospectively assess what’s already transformed, where we’re at in the present, and in turn predict what’s to come. AI has revolutionised customer service in recent years, and its impact is expected to continue, but it’s crucial to ensure AI is always only a tool to enhance human customer service workers’ experience, never replace it.”
Jonny explains that as AI inevitably continues to advance, keeping humanity at the core of customer service is crucial: “Humans are ultimately irreplaceable, and customer service is one of the jobs that requires that unique human touch. AI, to be used ethically, must have human oversight, and it all boils down to finding that collaboration between humans and AI where customer experience can be vastly improved.”
Resolvable reveals the 5 projected trends for AI customer service in 2026:
Human customer service operators reskilling
Many companies are now utilising AI for their customer service, implementing tools that make the experience of human workers easier by streamlining processes, freeing up time by taking care of repetitive tasks, and allowing employees the time and energy to focus on the relationship-building customer service all boils down to.
With this comes an increased need for upskilling and reskilling. In 2026, we’ll likely see businesses integrating AI making new skills an integral part of their strategy, and it’s crucial that employees have the support they need to implement AI so it can benefit them.
Advanced personalisation
AI is expected to become even more personalised, advancing systems like natural language processing (NLP) that replicates human language speech patterns. It’s likely AI customer service will see even more personalised responses in 2026 that are tailored to the customer, considering context and applying human-like nuance, and even mirroring the tone of the customer.
Conversational AI
AI lacks the emotional intelligence that humans have, and even as conversational AI advances, robots could never match or replace human nuance, unique experience, and empathy.
It’s likely however that as AI advances, it will learn how to better understand the nuances of the human language, including emotions in the tone of voice, and get better at interpreting. This is where human oversight is especially important; to ensure the ethical use of AI and moral responsibility, it’s crucial that a human is auditing and monitoring AI-powered tools and the way they interact with humans. AI still carries harmful bias, and cannot replicate a human response with human judgement, so it’s crucial it is only used as a tool.
Collaboration
AI customer service in 2026 will see AI handle the manual, administrative tasks surrounding complex support cases – like pulling up order histories, checking eligibility, or drafting steps for resolution – while trained human agents make the final calls on refunds, identity verification, and account updates.
This ensures accuracy and efficiency without removing the human judgment and empathy customers rely on.
Anticipating customer needs
In 2026, we expect to see AI become more able to predict and anticipate customer needs.
AI can use pattern recognition, assessing historical case studies and data-input to predict a customers’ likely next steps and needs. Using predictive analytics, AI can predict potential case escalation, allowing human agents to step in where necessary to apply human empathy and judgement and resolve any issues.