Zoom's AI Revolution: How Agentic AI is Transforming Customer Service by 2029

The customer service revolution is well underway, and AI is firmly in the driving seat.

According to Gartner's latest forecasts, agentic AI systems will independently resolve a staggering 80% of routine customer service enquiries by 2029, which should slash operational costs for companies by around 30% in the process.

Zoom, one of the world's premier video-calling services, is already seeing this transformation happen, with the firm recently reporting a remarkable 65% year-on-year surge in contact centre customers alongside securing its most substantial AI Virtual Agent contract to date.

At the forefront of this technological shift stands Ben Neo, Head of Zoom Contact Centre and CX Sales for EMEA, who has spent more than a quarter-century helping organisations revolutionise their customer experience strategies.

His expertise spans both public and private sectors, with a proven track record of maximising technology investments to deliver tangible results.

"With the introduction of AI, I am absolutely thrilled about what the next stage of innovation will bring to the market," Ben says.

The transformation Ben describes represents a huge shift in how his business and many others intend to approach customer support going forwards, moving from reactivity to proactivity.

This change is going to be powered by sophisticated technologies like sentiment detection algorithms, predictive analytics and AI-driven voice agents, all of which are helping to redefine the way the work is done.

How Zoom Contact Centre and CX Sales contributes to Zoom

These solutions are strategically central to Zoom’s growth beyond a video communications solution and enhancing how customers engage with their customers.

In our latest earnings information, we recorded a 65% year-on-year increase in contact centre customers and secured our largest deal to date for Zoom Virtual Agent, our AI-powered conversational chatbot.

These milestones reflect the increasing demand for our customer experience (CX) offerings and their positive impact on both customer satisfaction and business performance.

The sweet spot for us is where Zoom Contact Centre and advanced conversational AI combine with human expertise to create effortless experiences for customers.

This enables smoother collaboration between customer-facing teams and back-office support, allowing organisations to respond more effectively and promptly to customer needs.

By helping businesses deliver faster, higher-quality service, these solutions enhance customer satisfaction and reinforce Zoom’s position as a comprehensive communication and CX platform.

How is agentic AI redefining end-to-end autonomy at Zoom?

Agentic AI is transforming how Zoom delivers end-to-end autonomy in customer experience by enabling intelligent systems to autonomously manage complex customer interactions, from initiation to resolution.

Zoom Virtual Agent now autonomously completes complex tasks like retrieving order details or updating personal information using either voice or chat.

It anticipates needs, offers solutions before problems are fully expressed and integrates seamlessly with Zoom Contact Center to ensure smooth, context-rich handoffs to live agents when needed.

By orchestrating interactions across self-service and live support, agentic AI enhances speed, consistency and empathy throughout the customer journey while delivering the right outcome for the customer.

It empowers organisations to offer deeply personalised experiences while freeing up human agents to focus on more emotionally sensitive or high-stake tasks.

What are the most significant operational shifts you've observed as AI moves to fully autonomous problem-solving?

One of the most significant shifts is the move from AI as a support tool for human agents to AI as the primary problem solver.

In traditional models, AI-assisted agents worked by surfacing information or suggesting next steps to help them with information retrieval and content delivery. Now, agentic AI has the potential to autonomously resolve issues end-to-end, often without any human involvement, which is a huge time saver.

Another key shift is the evolution from reactive service to proactive and predictive experiences.

AI now anticipates customer needs based on real-time behavioural and contextual data, triggering actions before a customer submits a query.

This improves customer satisfaction while streamlining operations by pre-empting contact volume and reducing issue escalations.

In what ways are human-centric virtual agents leveraging emotional intelligence, like tone and sentiment detection, to create more natural and seamless customer experiences?

Sentiment detection is a key way AI can create more natural and seamless customer experiences.

Zoom’s Sentiment Analysis, powered by AI Companion, uses AI to analyse the sentiment of a conversation in real time, based on a live transcript.

It determines whether the customer’s sentiment is neutral, negative or positive within the engagement they are having.

This feature works across both voice and text chats, allowing human agents to adapt their communication style according to the customer’s mood – with a real-time sentiment rating displayed alongside the conversation duration at the top of the screen.

By tracking sentiment throughout the interaction, the tool also helps organisations identify the most effective ways to engage with customers across dozens of different recordings and supports the training of new agents by providing insights into handling challenging situations.

How is agentic AI augmenting the role of human agents?

Agentic AI is augmenting the role of human agents by offloading routine, repetitive tasks and empowering them to focus on more complex, emotionally nuanced interactions.

Rather than simply assisting agents, agentic AI acts autonomously to handle common queries from retrieving information to resolving standard issues.

This shift frees up agents to step in only when their expertise, empathy or judgement is truly needed.

In effect, agentic AI elevates the agent’s role from problem-solver to relationship-builder and strategic contributor.

What impact has this had on agent job satisfaction, skill development and the ability to handle complex or sensitive customer issues?

Agentic AI has the potential to significantly improve agent job satisfaction by removing repetitive tasks and allowing them to focus on more meaningful, complex interactions that require an empathetic delivery.

This shift not only reduces burnout but also enhances skill development, as agents are exposed to more challenging cases and supported with real-time AI insights and coaching.

With better context and guidance, agents can handle sensitive issues more effectively, leading to improved outcomes for both customers and employees.

How are AI-powered voice agents enabling hyper-personalised, intuitive and secure conversations for Zoom customers and what are the latest innovations in this area?

AI-powered voice agents are elevating customer experience by making interactions more intuitive, personalised, efficient and autonomous. These voice agents use natural language understanding to engage with customers in real time.

They can recognise caller intent, access relevant information instantly and respond with accurate, context-aware answers – whether it is checking an account balance, resetting a password or booking an appointment.

With intelligent routing and real-time sentiment analysis, voice agents seamlessly escalate issues to the right human agent, preserving context and minimising customer effort.

Secure and scalable, they enable 24/7 support without compromising service quality.

From your perspective, what strategies should contact centres adopt to balance automation with the need for human empathy, compliance and continuous improvement?

To strike the right balance between automation and human empathy, contact centres should adopt a human-centred automation strategy. This is one that enhances human capability and delivers the right outcome for the customer each and every time.

This means using AI to handle routine, repetitive tasks while equipping agents with real-time insights, sentiment analysis and contextual prompts to better navigate interactions. Investing in intuitive, integrated tools that reduce digital fatigue and create seamless collaboration is key.

Just as importantly, contact centres should prioritise continuous training, ethical oversight and compliance by embedding feedback loops and transparent governance into AI systems.

The goal isn’t just efficiency, it’s empowering agents to deliver empathetic, compliant and consistently high-quality service at scale.