You're building AI for customers who haven't asked for it yet

Every conversation about digital investment right now ends up in the same place. AI. What we’re building with it, how fast we’re moving, what it’s going to do for our customers. The energy behind it is real and the ambition is genuine. What’s less certain is whether the customers at the centre of those conversations have been asked what they actually think.

So we did. At the start of 2026 MSQ DX surveyed 1,000 UK consumers and 150 digital leaders from enterprise businesses across Financial Services, Healthcare, Hospitality, Retail, Telecoms, Manufacturing, Legal and Travel and Transport. We asked both groups how comfortable customers are with AI in customer service. Digital leaders answered with confidence, 90.7% believed their customers were comfortable. When we asked those customers directly, only 41.5% said they actually were.

And when you look at who is driving that discomfort, the picture gets even more surprising. Among 25 to 34 year olds, the demographic that represents the future revenue of most businesses, only 59.4% are comfortable with AI in customer service. Four in ten of your most commercially critical customers are not ready for the experience your roadmap is being built around. And perhaps most surprisingly of all, the 18 to 24 age group, the generation that has grown up entirely in the digital era, sits even lower at 46.2%. The assumption that younger always means more AI-ready is not one the data supports.

Even in the age group most receptive to AI, a significant proportion of customers are not ready for the experience most roadmaps are being built around. And that proportion only grows as you move across every other age group in the research.

Why do 28% of customers remain uncomfortable with AI even when a human option exists?

When we dug deeper into what leaders believe would resolve customer discomfort with AI, 86.6% said customers were comfortable as long as they could reach a human if needed, or even if they never reached a human at all. But 28.2% of consumers are uncomfortable with AI in customer service regardless of whether a human fallback exists. Their discomfort is not about functionality. It is about trust. And trust is not something you resolve with a button that says speak to a human.

How wide is the gap between your AI ambitions and your customers' reality?

Imagine your customer has just spent twenty minutes trying to resolve something through your AI assistant, been passed between three different channels and had to repeat themselves twice, still without an answer. That same customer then opens LinkedIn to find your brand announcing yet another AI strategy to further optimise their digital experience.

That customer is not asking for more AI. They are asking to feel known, valued and heard by a brand they have already given their time and trust to. And the things they want fixed have nothing to do with your next roadmap announcement. Our research found that 35.3% of consumers cite having to repeat information they have already provided as the number one reason they abandon a purchase, not slow load times or a complicated checkout, but the feeling of being unknown to a brand they have interacted with before. That is not a technology problem, it’s a trust problem. And announcing more AI investment to customers who are not yet comfortable with what you have already built will not close that gap. It will widen it.

The figures above relate specifically to AI in customer service. But consider what they signal about your wider digital strategy. If the near 50-point gap between what leaders assume and what customers actually feel exists in one area of the digital experience, the same disconnect is likely running through every AI-powered touchpoint being built right now. The customers who feel unknown in your customer service channel are the same customers navigating your website, your app and your checkout. The trust gap does not sit in one part of the experience. It runs through all of it.

And until the digital experience earns that trust — not through sophistication, but through consistency, simplicity and genuine understanding of who your customers are — the next AI announcement will land on the same fertile ground as the last one. Which, for a growing proportion of your customer base, is not fertile ground at all.

Before the next investment gets signed off

If you want to understand where your digital experience stands and what needs to be in place before AI can move the needle for your customers, get in touch with MSQ DX.

FAQ:

What percentage of consumers are comfortable with AI in customer service? MSQ DX research found that only 41.5% of UK consumers are actively comfortable with AI in customer service, despite 90.7% of digital leaders believing their customers are comfortable. That near 50-point gap between assumption and reality is currently shaping roadmap decisions and AI investment across enterprise businesses in the UK.

Are younger consumers more comfortable with AI than older consumers? Not as straightforwardly as most businesses assume. MSQ DX research found that 18 to 24 year olds are less comfortable with AI in customer service than 25 to 34 and 35 to 44 year olds, sitting at just 46.2%. The assumption that younger always means more AI-ready is not one the data supports.

Why are customers uncomfortable with AI in customer service even when a human fallback exists? MSQ DX research found that 28.2% of consumers are uncomfortable with AI in customer service regardless of whether a human escalation option is available. Their discomfort is not about functionality or features. It is about trust, and trust is built through consistent, reliable experiences over time rather than resolved with a single feature addition.

What is the biggest reason customers abandon a purchase online? MSQ DX research found that 35.3% of consumers cite having to repeat information they have already provided as the single biggest reason they abandon a purchase, ahead of slow load times and complicated checkouts. This is not a UX problem. It is a data integration and systems architecture problem that no amount of AI investment will resolve on its own.

What do consumers actually want from digital experience before AI? Before AI sophistication, consumers want the basics to work seamlessly. MSQ DX research found that real-time tracking at 32%, 24/7 service availability at 28% and seamless omnichannel experience at 25% are the capabilities consumers expect as standard by 2027. These foundational capabilities consistently ranked higher than AI-powered features in consumer priorities.

How should businesses approach AI deployment given low consumer comfort levels? MSQ DX recommends surveying your specific customer base on AI comfort rather than assuming from industry averages. Segment by age and use case, always provide a clear human escalation path and ensure your digital foundations are already delivering a seamless experience before deploying AI on top of them.