In today's competitive market, businesses must deliver a seamless, consistent, and timely customer experience to succeed. Consumer expectations are higher than ever; they demand immediate responses, continuous availability, and customer service that fully understands their needs. However, businesses handling large volumes of requests face the daily challenge of providing quick, consistent, and personalized responses across multiple channels. Relying on overwhelmed human operators or outdated solutions, such as static IVRs, is no longer adequate. In this environment, Virtual Assistants powered by AI Agents have become a vital strategic tool.
This article explores how AI Agents can enhance the customer journey, offering concrete examples, measurable benefits, and best practices.
The Customer Journey in the AI Agents Era
Digital transformation has profoundly changed consumer behaviors and brand expectations. Today, customers demand immediate, seamless, and consistent interactions throughout their entire journey, from sales support to post-purchase service. The customer experience has become increasingly hybrid, naturally mixing online and offline touchpoints in an omnichannel strategy. One clear trend is that the first point of contact with a company is often through a Virtual Assistant.
According to our latest report, Customer Experience Unlocked 2025, 33% of Italian users rely on Virtual Assistants to research products before making a purchase. This marks a significant increase from 18% the previous year. In terms of customer service, this reliance rises to 49%, indicating a growing trust in conversational AI for fast and accurate assistance. Virtual Assistants are now seen as quick, dependable, and always-available allies, becoming a key touchpoint for 44% of Italian customers who choose to use them whenever they are available.
But it's not just about offering better service. For businesses, enhancing the customer experience means optimizing processes, reducing operational costs, and improving commercial outcomes. Being able to respond to chat or WhatsApp inquiries within seconds can be the difference between losing a customer and closing a sale. That’s why AI-powered Virtual Assistants are a strategic investment today, enabling personalized interactions at scale and turning every contact into an opportunity for service, upselling, or building customer loyalty.
What are AI Agents
AI Agents are sophisticated software programs capable of interacting with their environment, collecting data, and completing tasks to reach specific goals. Unlike traditional chatbots that rely on strict flows and preset scripts, AI Agents utilize technologies such as Natural Language Processing (NLP) and machine learning to comprehend natural language, adapt to user requests, and deliver personalized, context-aware responses. Each AI Agent is built with a prompt template, a structured set of instructions that define how to act based on user intent, what tone to adopt, where to gather information, and how to direct conversations toward achieving goals. In this way, an AI Agent is results-driven and functions as a domain expert specialized in specific tasks. Thanks to their adaptability, AI Agents can be integrated across various platforms and formats, from website chats or messaging apps like WhatsApp to voice systems. Their constant availability and seamless integration with CRMs, knowledge bases, or ticketing systems make them a strategic tool for boosting operational efficiency, enhancing customer experience, and reducing management costs.
Advantages of AI Agents Throughout the Customer Journey
Continuous availability and immediate responses
AI Agents provide continuous customer support, removing wait times and delivering instant responses. This keeps the company constantly accessible to its customers, greatly boosting overall satisfaction and significantly reducing frustrations caused by delays or untimely replies.
Consistency, reliability, and accuracy
AI Agents are directly integrated with company systems, such as CRMs and with knowledge bases, ensuring that information is always up to date and consistent. Unlike interactions that are managed manually and can differ from one operator to another, Virtual Assistants deliver uniform, accurate, and comprehensive responses. This reliability enhances brand trust and significantly improves the company's reputation.
Advanced personalization of the experience
AI agents intelligently analyze historical and behavioral user data to create highly personalized interactions. Each conversation can be tailored to individual customers, featuring targeted recommendations and customized communication. This approach makes each person feel understood, valued, and more connected to the brand. Such personalized attention significantly boosts customer loyalty and increases the likelihood of conversions.
Operational efficiency and cost reduction
For businesses, implementing AI agents enables the automation of numerous frequent and repetitive tasks. This automation allows human resources to concentrate on more strategic and high-value tasks. The outcome is twofold: a significant reduction in operational costs and an overall enhancement in the quality and efficiency of customer service.
Omnichannel and consistent experience
The ability of AI agents to operate simultaneously across multiple digital channels is essential for creating a modern and seamless customer journey. Whether through websites, mobile apps, WhatsApp, or voice channels, these platforms become integrated and interchangeable. This integration ensures that users enjoy a consistent experience, with the same quality of service and brand-aligned language, regardless of the channel they choose.
Continuity between digital and physical worlds
AI agents facilitate true integration between online and offline experiences. For example, a customer who starts a digital conversation about a product can easily continue that discussion in-store by scanning a QR code that reactivates the same virtual assistant. Additionally, virtual assistants can schedule appointments, arrange product trials, and collect feedback during in-person experiences, creating a dynamic and fully integrated purchasing journey.
Intelligent and contextual use of data
Advanced AI agents possess the essential ability to collect, analyze, and utilize relevant data in real-time, creating a shared memory of interactions. By integrating with CRM systems and internal databases, these agents can recall past conversations, enabling users to continue right where they left off. This contextual approach enhances emotional connections between customers and brands, ultimately improving perceived service quality and increasing the likelihood of conversion and retention over time.
Concrete Examples
Consumer banking and financial services
In consumer banking and financial services, AI agents help automate the workloads of large customer support teams by managing daily requests related to personal loans, financing, credit cards, accounts, and more. A virtual assistant can instantly answer common questions, such as checking the status of loan applications or credit card balances. This improves speed and accuracy while ensuring compliance with strict industry regulations. Additionally, companies can utilize AI agents in sales support to automatically reach out to leads generated through digital funnels. This approach increases the likelihood of conversions and significantly boosts revenues at a minimal cost.
Insurance
In insurance customer care, these systems quickly and accurately manage common inquiries such as claims processing, policy renewals, and complaint handling across various channels, including chat, phone, and WhatsApp. For sales support, AI agents conduct outbound activities by reaching out to leads gathered online or from comparison websites, following up on pending quotes, or offering additional policies. In these situations, AI agents maintain a consistent tone and respond promptly and efficiently, enhancing sales effectiveness.
Utilities & Smart Energy
In the utilities and smart energy sectors, AI agents manage a variety of inquiries related to bills, technical issues, bonuses, and new connections. They automate repetitive tasks and offer immediate answers to common questions about consumption checks, fault resolution times, and eligibility for bonuses. Furthermore, AI agents facilitate outbound interactions with potential customers interested in switching providers or activating new offers online, where quick responses are essential for successful conversions.
The Future of the Customer Journey with AI Agents
Increasingly sophisticated and proactive AI Agents
The future customer journey will be significantly shaped by increasingly sophisticated AI agents, driven by advancements in large language models (LLMs) that can perform proactive and complex actions. Imagine a virtual assistant that detects when a customer's subscription is nearing expiry and proactively offers a renewal or provides preventive technical assistance before users even notice an issue. These technically feasible scenarios will transform the customer experience from reactive to deeply predictive and proactive, thereby enhancing satisfaction and loyalty.
According to our Customer Experience Unlocked 2025 report, 51% of Italian companies already anticipate a greater reliance on autonomous and automated solutions to meet the rising expectations of consumers. This trend suggests that the future will involve intelligent technologies designed to free up human resources, enhance service quality, and improve overall operational efficiency.
Multimodal experiences and advanced omnichannel
The advanced use of multimodal AI will increasingly define the customer journey of the future. Virtual Assistants will manage seamless interactions across voice, text, images, and videos, creating engaging, rich, and accessible experiences.
Imagine a customer receiving illustrative product images on their smartphone or website while having a voice conversation with a Virtual Assistant. They could also switch smoothly from text chat to voice interaction without any interruptions. These multimodal, omnichannel experiences will become the norm, enabling businesses to provide highly personalized, intuitive, and engaging services.
AI agents are transforming the customer journey by turning every interaction into an opportunity for growth and customer loyalty. It's no longer just about efficiently managing customer support; instead, the focus is on anticipating consumer needs by providing personalized, consistent, and omnichannel experiences. By leveraging advanced technologies such as natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning, virtual assistants enhance customer satisfaction, increase conversion rates, and significantly reduce operational costs.
In the future, AI agents will become even more proactive, capable of managing multimodal conversations and anticipating latent needs through highly contextual solutions. By investing in these innovative tools today, businesses can strategically position themselves in a competitive market, enhance their reputation, and ensure a seamless, engaging customer journey that meets modern consumer expectations.
FAQs
What are the main benefits of companies adopting AI Agents?
The primary benefits include continuous service availability, instant responses, reduced operational costs, improved customer experience, and increased conversions. By automating repetitive tasks, companies can allow their human resources to focus on higher-value strategic activities.
How do AI Agents support omnichannel experiences?
AI Agents operate simultaneously across multiple digital channels, such as chat, WhatsApp, voice, and mobile apps. This ensures a smooth and consistent experience for customers. They can seamlessly switch between channels while always receiving the same quality of service, unified language, and brand coherence.
Which sectors benefit most from AI Agents?
Key sectors benefiting from AI Agents include banking and financial services, enhancing standard request management and sales support; insurance, through rapid claim handling and outbound recovery of pending quotes; utilities and smart energy, automating technical and commercial inquiries.
