Survey reveals strong momentum for AI investment, unlocking significant opportunities for full-scale integrations that include multimodal interfaces, voice technology, and agentic AI

Research commissioned by TELUS Digital Experience (TELUS Digital) (NYSE and TSX: TIXT), a leading global technology company deploying exceptional customer experiences, reveals that enterprise leaders have reached a pivotal juncture in their generative AI (GenAI) plans. Survey respondents indicated that they are at various stages of designing, implementing and scaling AI within their businesses.

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Excerpt from TELUS Digital and Statista survey, highlighting U.S. enterprise leaders' top digital CX priorities in 2025.

Enthusiasm for GenAI is Clear, but Adoption Gaps Remain

The survey, conducted in partnership with Statista, asked 250 enterprise leaders across the U.S. to identify their 2025 digital CX priorities and the key factors driving those decisions.

Results show that CX leaders recognize the transformative power of GenAI, with 71% identifying GenAI as a key driver for improving customer service delivery and 36% planning to allocate over $4 million to GenAI initiatives in 2025.

Despite ongoing economic uncertainties throughout 2024, 78% of leaders said they plan to increase their CX spending in 2025, with over a quarter of respondents expecting their budgets to grow by more than 25%. This focus on customer experience excellence is reinforced by key priorities and outcomes:

• 84% of CX leaders consider the need to "improve the quality of customer service delivery" as being of critical or high importance, making it their most pressing objective for 2025;
• 76% reported improved customer experience outcomes over the past year; and
• 44% of CX leaders said that advancements in technology had the greatest external impact on their company’s customer experience in 2024.

Despite this momentum in technology-driven CX, only 10% of leaders consider their enterprises in a "steady state" with GenAI. “We are encouraged by how many brands are embracing GenAI opportunities; however, many organizations are still in the early stages of experimentation with GenAI, which reveals a disconnect between CX priorities and the ability to fully integrate GenAI solutions,” said Monty Hamilton, Chief Product and Marketing Officer, TELUS Digital.

Closing this gap will be essential for brands to unlock more intuitive, intelligent, and personalized customer journeys at scale in 2025 and beyond. “Whilst we continue to build cutting-edge capabilities for our clients, we are focused on helping them move from single-threaded solutions to more holistic GenAI adoption across their organizations. Given the size and scope of our clients’ CX operations, scaling these activities has a big impact,” said Hamilton.

Voice Technology is an Untapped Opportunity

While the survey results show enthusiasm for advancing CX through AI technologies, the areas where leaders are choosing to invest tell a more nuanced story. When asked about top digital CX technologies they plan to invest in for 2025:

• 44% prioritized CRM systems as their top investment area
• 38% planned to invest in chatbots and virtual assistants
• 32% chose analytic tools

Only 14% of CX leaders surveyed said they planned to invest in voice technology in 2025, a critical enabler of multimodal customer experiences.

“AI-powered chatbots and similar foundational applications are a good starting point, but CX leaders should be aiming higher this year, especially in considering transformational technologies like voice, which can deliver impactful value for brands,” said Tobias Dengel, President, TELUS Digital Solutions, and author of The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology, a Wall Street Journal and USA Today bestseller. “Powered by generative AI, voice-first interfaces will make digital customer experiences more natural, accurate, accessible, and human. Brands must innovate to stay ahead, and seriously consider adopting voice-first strategies or they risk disruption by competitors who do, as voice-driven customer experiences become increasingly mainstream.”

“With agentic AI now emerging, where systems can autonomously analyze information and make decisions, brands need to start laying the groundwork today,” added Dengel. “The good news is that AI adoption doesn’t have to come with prohibitive costs. By working with the right partner, organizations can leverage flexible, scalable solutions that align with OPEX-friendly models, reducing the need for large upfront investments. This approach enables CX leaders to more effectively bridge the gap between single purpose solutions and full-scale AI integration while building trust, safety, and control into their systems, ensuring readiness for the next wave of AI innovation.”

Overcoming Barriers to Unlock AI's Full Potential

What is holding CX leaders back from advancing their AI goals? Despite increased AI investment, leaders cite certain challenges to adopting full, scalable AI-powered customer experiences:

• 44% of CX leaders cited high costs as the primary challenge to advancing CX initiatives;
• 36% pointed to data compliance hurdles, reflecting the complexity of balancing innovation with regulatory requirements; and
• 34% identified technical infrastructure limitations as a roadblock to scaling CX efforts effectively.

Overcoming these challenges requires targeted, strategic investments in technologies and tools that deliver measurable outcomes. It also demands robust infrastructure, scalable platforms, and governance frameworks that build trust and ensure seamless integration across business operations. While these steps may seem financially daunting, they can be more accessible with the right approach.

Partnering for GenAI-fueled CX Success

TELUS Digital provides a comprehensive suite of AI-powered CX solutions designed to reduce risk, optimize operational costs, and drive measurable outcomes. With an end-to-end approach, TELUS Digital supports the entire customer journey, from modernizing CRM systems and enhancing AI-driven interactions to leveraging advanced analytics. These solutions empower enterprises at every stage of their digital transformation to deliver seamless, intelligent, and highly personalized customer experiences.

Fuel iX™, TELUS Digital’s proprietary GenAI engine, empowers organizations to scale AI solutions with flexibility, control and trust. As a vendor-agnostic solution, Fuel iX allows organizations to integrate seamlessly with multiple large language models (LLMs) and cloud providers, avoiding lock-in and giving businesses the ability to choose the technologies that best suit their evolving needs.

TELUS Digital’s GenAI Jumpstart Accelerator helps brands transition from exploration to implementation with a structured, expert-led approach. Focused on identifying high-impact use cases, aligning stakeholders, and building scalable AI roadmaps, the program reduces risk and accelerates time-to-value with an emphasis on collaboration, speed, and measurable outcomes.

Emerging technologies like voice and agentic AI are redefining customer interactions, creating exciting, new opportunities for brands. TELUS Digital helps businesses stay ahead by delivering solutions that combine multimodal experiences that blend voice, visual, and touch with conversational AI and mobile applications, enabling seamless and intuitive end-to-end customer journeys.

For more information on how to achieve your CX goals in 2025, visit telusdigital.com. You can read the full TELUS Digital and Statista survey results here.

The Sound of the Future: The Coming Age of Voice Technology, written by digital innovation leader, and President of TELUS Digital Solutions, Tobias Dengel, is available for purchase on Amazon.

About TELUS Digital

TELUS Digital (NYSE & TSX: TIXT) crafts unique and enduring experiences for customers and employees, and creates future-focused digital transformations that stand the test of time. We are the brand behind the brands. Our global team members are both passionate ambassadors of our clients’ products and services, and visionary technology experts resolute in our pursuit to elevate their end customer journeys, solve business challenges, mitigate risks, and drive continuous innovation. Our portfolio of end-to-end, integrated capabilities include digital IT services, such as cloud solutions and AI-fueled automation, trust and safety services, AI data solutions, including expertise in computer vision, and front-end digital design and consulting services. Fuel iX™ is TELUS Digital’s proprietary GenAI engine at the heart of our innovation, helping enterprises advance their GenAI pilots to working prototypes and production at scale, quickly, securely and responsibly across multiple environments, applications and clouds.

Powered by purpose, TELUS Digital leverages technology, human ingenuity and compassion to fuel remarkable outcomes and create inclusive, thriving communities in the regions where we operate around the world. Guided by our Humanity-in-the-loop principles, we take a responsible approach to the transformational technologies we develop and deploy by proactively considering and addressing the broader impacts of our work. Learn more at: telusdigital.com

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