Infobip study finds CX investment gap in global brands
Thu, 14th May 2026 (Today)
Infobip has published research showing a gap between customer experience investment and delivery among global brands. The findings suggest many companies have automated customer interactions without building the systems needed to scale them effectively.
The study found that 96% of brands automate customer interactions in some form, but only 58% said their channels were fully synchronised and 60% had centralised customer data storage. Just 27% used an orchestration platform, while only half of respondents said their tools were fully API-ready.
These figures point to a broader problem in how businesses connect customer data, communications channels and internal systems. The report argues that these gaps are limiting efforts to move from basic alerts and notifications to more interactive customer journeys across channels such as WhatsApp and mobile messaging.
The issue is becoming more pressing as brands increase their use of agentic AI in customer journeys. More than half of organisations surveyed, 53%, said they already use agentic AI, but respondents also reported significant barriers to wider deployment.
User trust was cited by 71% of organisations as a constraint on deeper AI use, while 64% pointed to data privacy concerns and 41% highlighted difficulties integrating their technology stacks. Together, these findings suggest AI adoption is advancing faster than the underlying systems needed to support it.
Ante Pamuković, chief revenue officer at Infobip, described the shift in the market.
"Our CX Maturity report highlights a turning point for global brands this year. The race to adopt agentic AI is well underway, but CX Maturity will be the key differentiator between brands prepared to launch effective AI-powered journeys that last and the ones that will struggle with scaling their adoption. To move from basic automated responses to deep, seamless customer journeys, brands must overcome the dual barriers of fragmented systems and user trust," said Pamuković.
The findings break down customer experience maturity across retail, banking and telecommunications, measuring automated journey coverage, tool and AI sophistication, and how ready infrastructure is to support broader deployment.
Sector results
Retail and telecommunications jointly led on journey automation, each scoring 32 out of 100, while banking scored 30. Telecommunications ranked highest on sophistication with 27, ahead of retail on 26 and banking on 21.
On system potential, retail and telecommunications again shared the top score at 59, compared with 56 for banking. Even so, the results suggest all three sectors still have considerable room for improvement, particularly in the sophistication of automated interactions.
The report defines journey scores as the proportion of the customer journey automated with communication and mobile tools. Sophistication reflects the technology and AI used for automation and the features enabled for each use case. System potential measures how far organisations have built API-ready infrastructure, communication solutions and channels that can be activated to improve customer journeys.
The data indicates that many brands have taken initial steps to automate customer communications, but fewer have unified platforms or integrated systems that can support more complex and responsive interactions. That matters in sectors such as banking, retail and telecoms, where customers increasingly expect to act within the communication channel rather than just receive one-way notifications.
Frost & Sullivan also commented on the market backdrop described in the research.
"Agentic AI has redefined the CX landscape with capacity to reason, plan, and implement across workflows. The challenge has now shifted from exploring the technology's potential to implementing it, requiring enterprises to adapt their systems and build customer trust," said Popova.
Across the findings, the central issue is not whether brands have begun automating customer interactions, but whether their systems are connected enough to support consistent service across channels. With only around one in four organisations using orchestration platforms and half still lacking full API readiness, many businesses appear to be operating on fragmented foundations even as they expand AI-led customer engagement.
This leaves a gap between investment and execution, particularly for companies trying to deliver two-way, action-based interactions rather than simple outbound messages. In practical terms, the research suggests customer experience performance will depend as much on integration and trust as on AI adoption itself.
Telecommunications emerged as the most advanced sector on sophistication, with a score of 27 out of 100.