2025 Contact Center Goals and Investment Priority Trends: Embracing AI for an Enhanced CX and EX
February 2025
DMG Consulting has conducted an annual global survey of enterprise, contact center, customer experience (CX), and IT leaders over the past decade (excluding 2019) to gain insights into business goals and technology investment plans for their servicing organizations during the next year. Our December 2024 survey addressed these topics for 2025. DMG’s primary research findings reveal a single cornerstone connecting this year’s priorities: the growing application of artificial intelligence (AI) and automation technologies in contact center and customer service operating environments. Given the level of focus on these capabilities in the market and their proven ability to improve the CX, enhance the employee experience (EX), and boost productivity, this is no surprise.
Are contact centers adopting AI?
DMG’s 2023 survey, which addressed 2024 planning, found 28.0% of participants were already using AI in their servicing operations as of December 2023 (when the survey was offered). An additional 37.1% of those respondents expected to invest in it by the end of 2024, for a total of 65.1%. DMG’s December 2024 survey results determined that 78.0% of respondents’ contact centers were already actively engaged with AI, indicating more rapid adoption during the year. Many of these organizations approached the application of AI cautiously in 2024, identifying solutions capable of delivering quantifiable benefits and moving ahead with small implementations or pilots and preparing to roll them out more broadly in 2025. For this reason, DMG projects significant AI adoption this year, especially in US-based contact centers (as long as the economy remains strong), although growth may be slower in Asia, Europe, and Latin America due to their current economic conditions.
Contact center business goals for 2025
Improving the CX was a business objective for 57.6% of survey respondents, making it the most frequently selected goal for contact centers in 2025, which is consistent with findings from each of DMG’s annual surveys. (Although enhancing self-service systems was tied for the top spot in 2024, improving the CX is once again on its own in first-place for 2025.) AI-enabled products are positioned to shake up the CX world by creating endless possibilities to enhance enterprise operations and improve how live and automated agents interact with consumers, giving organizations the tools to deliver on this objective.
Enhancing self-service systems was in second place, identified as a 2025 contact center goal by 53.0% of survey participants. Since consumers increasingly prefer helping themselves, it’s important for this to remain a top priority for companies. Today’s conversational AI (CAI) solutions leverage generative AI (GenAI) to complete consumer inquiries that interactive voice response (IVR) solutions can’t properly handle, making self-service a more viable option for consumers. Delivering intelligent tools for customer use isn’t the only highly rated objective for 2025; providing similar assistance for employees via agent automation applications came in fourth place, chosen by 40.9% of survey participants.
Rounding out the top five contact center business priorities for 2025 were two associated items: improving productivity in third place, and reducing operating costs, which was in the fifth spot. These two goals were selected by 48.5% and 40.2% of survey respondents, respectively. Because contact centers’ people-related expenses can account for 60+% of their budgets, significant pressure can be placed on these operating environments to ensure agents are as productive as possible to help control expenses.
Contact center technology investment priorities for 2025
AI/GenAI was the top contact center investment priority for 2025, identified by the largest percentage of survey respondents, 43.2%, from a list of 23 named options, plus “Other” (see below). Given the intense interest in these capabilities throughout the market, this is to be expected. Contact center applications across every technology category have been AI-enabled in recent years, delivering a needed wave of innovation which is likely to drive many solution replacements in 2025. While AI’s promise is almost limitless, we’re only beginning to understand its full potential, even as it evolves at an amazingly rapid rate. Therefore, leaders need to take a measured approach when they consider the many ways they can utilize AI/GenAI technologies in their organization.
Workforce management (WFM) applications came in second place for contact center investments in 2025, chosen by 40.8% of executives and managers who completed DMG’s annual survey. These essential solutions increasingly include new AI-powered capabilities to address digital and asynchronous interactions or tasks, and actively involve employees in many aspects of the scheduling process, giving them more control over their workday.
Self-service solutions were the third-highest investment area for 2025, selected by 36.0% of participants. Consumers want to self-serve if solutions are easy to use and effective, making it necessary for companies to offer next-generation omnichannel CAI platforms. DMG projects this to be a significant area of investment for enterprises, not just contact centers, in the foreseeable future.
The fourth-place investment priority for contact centers in 2025 is automated quality management (AQM), selected by 28.0% of survey respondents. AQM applications, which leverage AI to review and evaluate up to 100% of voice and digital conversations, have been greatly enhanced by GenAI over the past couple years to help contact centers improve performance and quality while reducing operating costs. Results for more contact center technology investments anticipated to take place in 2025 are detailed here.
Contact Center Technology/System Investments for 2025
Final Thoughts
DMG believes 2025 will be a strong year for contact center technology investments as companies identify the value equation from the new generation of AI-enabled applications. Many enterprises that spent the prior year gaining an appreciation of AI’s contributions and challenges via pilots or small implementations are ready to move forward with wider adoption that focuses on practical uses of AI to improve the CX, EX, and bottom line.