The Agentic Consumer Report examines how personal AI tools are changing customer expectations, confidence, and interactions with businesses

Capacity, an agentic support automation platform, has released The Agentic Consumer Report, based on a survey of 1,000 U.S. consumers. The report examines how consumers are increasingly using personal AI tools during customer service interactions and explores the implications for businesses and contact center leaders.

As organizations deploy AI to improve customer experience (CX), consumers are also using their own AI assistants and agents to navigate service requests, question responses, and challenge company policies. According to the report, this trend is particularly pronounced among younger generations and is creating new expectations for customer service accuracy, transparency, and accountability.

Younger Consumers Lead Personal AI Adoption

The report found that 35% of respondents had used an AI agent to handle a customer service request at least once. Among Gen Z and Millennial consumers, the figure increased to 49%.

Overall, 55% of respondents said they had used an AI tool, such as an AI agent or large language model (LLM), to assist with a customer service request. However, these tools can also introduce conflicting information into service interactions.

According to the survey, 44% of respondents said AI had contradicted a company representative or the company's policies. When AI-generated information conflicts with what a customer service representative says, consumers are equally likely to trust either source.

These findings highlight the challenge businesses face as customers increasingly rely on AI for guidance while expecting companies to provide consistent, accurate answers.

AI Is Changing How Customers Challenge Representatives

Personal AI tools are influencing how consumers approach customer service conversations and question the information they receive.

The survey found that 34% of respondents said AI makes them ask more specific questions during customer service interactions. Another 23% said they would ask representatives to explain or cite company policies because of AI.

The findings suggest that customer service teams may increasingly encounter consumers who arrive with AI-generated information, expectations, and arguments. Representatives will need access to reliable company knowledge to explain decisions, resolve discrepancies, and provide consistent responses.

Escalation and Human Support Expectations Are Evolving

AI is also influencing how quickly consumers seek additional assistance and how they expect to connect with human representatives.

According to the report, 20% of consumers said they would escalate issues more quickly when using AI tools. Meanwhile, 21% said they would trust their AI agent to connect them with a human representative and then join the conversation.

These behaviors point to a changing relationship between automated and human support. As consumer-owned AI tools interact with company-operated systems, contact centers will need clear escalation processes and safeguards to prevent repetitive exchanges between AI agents.

Effective workflows will need to keep routine requests automated while ensuring that complex, sensitive, or unresolved issues can be transferred to human representatives.

CX Leaders Must Prioritize Accuracy and Accountability

David Karandish, founder and CEO of Capacity, said customer service strategies must evolve as consumers begin using AI to challenge the answers they receive from businesses.

He emphasized that organizations should look beyond response speed and resolution rates to evaluate whether their answers are accurate, their decisions can be justified, and customers can trust the outcomes.

For contact center leaders, this means equipping both human representatives and AI systems with accurate, consistent company information. Businesses will also need to ensure that policies and decisions can be explained clearly when consumers question an answer or present conflicting information from their own AI tools.

Continuous Learning Becomes Essential for Customer Experience

Capacity said businesses should establish continuous learning processes that identify situations in which consumers are more likely to challenge an answer or request further explanation.

Insights from these interactions can help organizations improve AI responses, strengthen representative training, and prepare support teams for increasingly complex, AI-assisted conversations.

Karandish added that customer experience strategies must adapt to changing consumer behavior, with insights from these scenarios helping prepare both AI agents and human representatives for new interaction patterns.

As consumers become more comfortable using AI to research issues, question policies, and seek escalation, businesses will need to balance automation with accuracy, transparency, and human oversight. The report positions these capabilities as important considerations for organizations seeking to maintain customer trust as AI becomes more deeply embedded in service experiences.