Conversational CX maturity: Advancing customer experience 

Brands are working hard to stay ahead, but customers today want personalized experiences. They’re quick to switch to brands that truly understand and serve their needs. 

To understand how we got here, it helps to look at how communication has evolved. Technology and culture have always shaped how we communicate. We’ve moved from local, face-to-face conversations to fast, global digital interactions, each era transforming the way we connect.  

Alvin Toffler’s framework captures this evolution: 

• First wave – Agricultural society: Communication was local, spoken, and written within small communities. 
   
• Second wave – Industrial age: Mass media like print, radio, and TV enabled one-way communication to large audiences.   
   
• Third wave – Information age: Email, websites, and social platforms made it easy to connect and share information instantly across the globe. 
   

Now, we are entering the Fourth Wave shaped by generative AI, autonomous agents, and intelligent systems. People no longer want just information, they expect instant, personalized, and seamless conversations with brands across their preferred channels. 

But most brands are struggling to meet these expectations. 94% of brands face digital challenges that hold them back from delivering the AI-powered, conversational experiences customers expect. 

So how can brands overcome these hurdles and lead in the new era of communication? 

Thanks to agentic AI, automation, chat apps, large language models (LLMs), and especially vast amount of data, brands can offer highly personalized conversational experiences. 

Technology stacks are now flexible and composable. Channels and platforms for conversations keep changing, allowing two-way interactions that mix empathy with smart tech. Brands that understand this shift and invest in conversational customer experience lead the way. 

What is the path to achieving this? 

Conversational Customer Experience (CX) is now a key factor that sets apart brands who connect well with their audience through flexible technology from those who struggle to keep up. 

At Infobip, we believe communication can’t happen alone, and tech success depends on being flexible, using data wisely, and understanding customer feelings to create AI chatbot-driven experiences at scale. 

That’s why we created the Conversational CX Maturity benchmark, to help brands see how effectively they communicate with customers and what they can do better. 

About our research 

We surveyed 206 business leaders from large companies (500+ employees) in Finance, Healthcare, Retail, and Telco worldwide. The goal was to see how brands are adopting Conversational CX and where they stand in the industry. 

Read on to learn what makes a brand mature in Conversational CX and how your brand can make smart, data-driven choices to boost conversions, engagement, and customer happiness. 

What factors define a brand’s maturity in Conversational CX? 

We found two main areas that shape maturity: 

1. Journey: How well do customer journeys ensure a smooth and engaging experience? 

• Channel usage: Which channels do brands use to communicate with customers? 
• Use case automation: Which tasks are automated and how complex are they? 

2. Sophistication: How advanced are the tools and systems? 

• Software management: What software and tech are used for communication? 
• Support management: How do brands manage customer support? 
• Marketing management: How effective are marketing processes? 
• Data management: Do brands analyze data and use metrics to improve? 

Each factor matters, but the overall maturity depends on how well these parts work together. For example, a brand might automate many tasks but lag without scalable AI models. 

In short, when a brand is mature in both journey and sophistication, it’s ready to use agentic AI effectively. 

Our survey of 206 enterprise brands in four industries shows brands are slightly above mid-level maturity on average. This means most brands are not prepared to implement agentic AI but there are steps brands can take to mature their CX and reach this level. 

Integration of channels and tools 

Best AI-powered service happens through conversations, but customers expect these across many digital channels without calling support centers. 

Brands generally use about 6 channels to talk with customers. Popular ones include: 

• SMS 
• Live chat 
• In-app messaging 
• Social media (Instagram, Messenger) 
• WhatsApp 
• Email 

Most brands struggle to offer smooth, consistent, high-quality experiences, making it hard to build loyalty and efficiency. Agentic AI improves conversations across channels, but it works best when tools and channels are integrated. When everything works together, brands can use agentic AI to provide smooth and personal experiences. 

Although 80% of brands state they have an omnichannel strategy in place, 28% are not reaching their intended outcomes. Without true channel integration, a real omnichannel approach isn’t possible. 

This means many brands mix channels but miss the chance to mature into true omnichannel communication. 

What is a proper omnichannel strategy? 

An omnichannel strategy means offering smooth, integrated conversations across many channels. A key part is having a full 360-degree view of customer data from all sources: websites, apps, social media, stores, and support. 

By uniting this data through integrated tools, brands build a complete customer profile to understand preferences and needs and even predict what they will want to see. 

For example, a customer might browse products online, get recommendations through chat, and buy in-store with special offers. An omnichannel approach connects all these steps into one seamless experience, boosting loyalty and engagement. 

Only: 

• 30% of brands use journey builder tools 
• 51% have a Customer Data Platform (CDP) integrated across tools 

To succeed, brands need both these tools to collect data and create meaningful journeys on any channel. When these tools work together it becomes easy for brands to implement Agentic AI which can offer 24/7 support to customers for complex tasks, personalize and automated targeted messages, and make autonomous decisions on what path will best suit the customer based on their behavior. This makes the omnichannel strategy more dynamic, personalized to each customer, and more efficient for brands. 

What defines a highly mature brand in conversational CX? 

They have about 6 fully integrated channels and an omnichannel strategy that lets them: 

• Offer seamless journeys where customers switch channels without losing context 
• Keep consistent data to build unified customer profiles 
• Provide personalized content and support based on full customer history 
   

AI and automation 

89% of brands have implemented automation in customer interactions. But not all automation means you have a high maturity. 

The way brands use automation is important. Basic automation follows fixed rules to handle simple tasks. Agentic AI goes further because it learns from every interaction, adjusts to different situations, and gets better over time. That’s why it’s the most advanced form of automation, offering smarter and more personalized customer experiences. 

Most brands focus automation on support but lag in marketing and sales;

• 82% automate support 
• 61% automate marketing 
• 54% automate sales 
   

70% use chatbots to accelerate responses and manage basic inquiries. But the best chatbots handle many use cases with little human help, which is a sign of maturity. 

Still, many brands rely heavily on live agents, which slows maturity growth: 

• 32% have dedicated teams for all support inquiries 
• 40% have chatbots but humans handle most questions 
• 10% have chatbots handling most inquiries 
• 17% have GenAI chatbots handling most inquiries 

Agentic AI chatbots act more independently, managing workflows and improving over time. This reduces pressure on live agents and boosts customer satisfaction. 

Half of brands say call centers are overloaded with long waits because agents handle almost all requests. Agentic AI can take over routine tasks, freeing humans to concentrate on complex tasks that require critical thinking and problem-solving. 

Examples across industries 

AI focus is mostly on support:

• 61% use AI for support 
• 49% for marketing 
• 47% for sales 

Focusing on support is logical to give fast help, but ignoring marketing and sales hurts CX growth. Agentic AI can boost marketing and sales with predictive insights and personalized offers. For example, it can screen incoming leads, analyze behavior and engagement patterns, and automatically qualify them based on likelihood to convert. This helps sales teams focus only on high-quality leads, making the sales process faster and more efficient. 

Brands must adopt agentic AI and the latest AI tech to improve natural language understanding, context awareness, and predictions. This helps brands engage customers deeply, anticipate needs, and solve problems early. 

Agentic AI operates independently, using machine learning to manage actions with ongoing improvements from every interaction, cutting reliance on live agents and improving satisfaction.   

How can we define a truly mature Conversational CX? 

• Automates interactions across the customer journey 
• Uses data to create hyper-personalized offers and support 
• Has chatbots handling routine tasks to ease overworked agents 
   

This leads to: 

• Faster, self-service support instead of long waits 
• Personalized marketing that drives higher conversions 
• AI-assisted sales that find and nurture quality leads 
• Stronger loyalty and better overall customer experience 

Building Conversational CX maturity for the future 

To thrive in today’s digital world, brands must reach Conversational CX Maturity. This means investing in artificial intelligence (AI) tools, integrating channels smoothly, and deeply understanding customers. 

Brands need to evolve from basic chatbots to smart, proactive AI systems offering personalized experiences at every touchpoint. 

Agentic AI is key to this future, giving brands the power to reach the highest level of CX maturity. 

Customer-centric Conversational CX Maturity goes beyond technology, it’s about putting the customer first. Brands that do this see better satisfaction, loyalty, operational efficiency, and a stronger edge in the market.