Human Moments That Matter in an AI‑Driven Customer Experience

**SPEAKER_1** (0:02)
AI is everywhere, but what does it mean for your business? Gartner is the world authority on AI, with more than 200,000 client conversations, and more than 6,000 written insights on AI in 2025 alone. Leaders across the C-suite, just like you, are partnering with Gartner to turn AI ambition into impact. Go to gartner.com/ai to learn more.

**Alexis Waringa** (0:34)
Welcome to Gartner ThinkCast. I'm Alexis Waringa. We recently had the chance to visit Phoenix, Arizona for Gartner CIO Leadership Forum, one of our premier conferences for CIOs and IT leaders, and the first of several taking place around the world this year. Over the next few weeks, we'll be sharing some of the standout insights and sessions that reflect the challenges and opportunities leaders are navigating right now in the age of AI. Today, we're starting with Gartner Distinguished VP Analyst, Don Scheibenreif. Don joined us last year to discuss machine customers and autonomous business. And in a similar vein, he'll explore how to scale customer experience without losing the human connection that actually builds loyalty. Drawing on real world examples from travel and financial services to retail and public sector leadership, Don challenges CIOs to rethink how technology is designed, deployed and governed, so enhances customer relationships rather than replacing them. Now, here's Don Scheibenreif.

**Don Scheibenreif** (1:30)
Good afternoon.
I'm Don Scheibenreif. I'm a distinguished VP Analyst with Gartner, and I work in our CIO and AI Leaders Research Group, but I also work on customer experience. My background is actually marketing. In my time at Gartner, I've actually looked at this intersection of technology and customers. Today's presentation is more of a love letter to organizations about what they can do when it comes to CX and technology. So, what you may not know is that over 93% of executives that were surveyed, this is from a Wall Street Journal article, tell us that they admit that their customer experience is broken. They actually know it's important. They know it's a critical part of driving revenue and growth at the company, but they just don't seem to be able to get their heads wrapped around it. And that's been my experience doing research on CX at Gartner. Everybody likes the idea, but they just can't get their heads wrapped around it. So this is really important because without a good customer experience, I think it's very hard to achieve sustainable growth. And we can all answer that question ourselves as customers. We know that people that treat us well, that actually see us as human beings, tend to get more of our business than those organizations that don't. Let me tell you a quick story. I travel a lot, like many of you do, and I stayed at the Marriott Hotel in Vancouver, Canada. I was here for a briefing. This was last year. And I'm a big fan of Marriott. I used the app. I used the technology. I checked in to the hotel when I was in the Uber from the airport. I got a digital key. I didn't even talk to anybody at the front desk. I went to my room. I ordered room service on the app, the whole nine yards. And that's what I felt like. And Marriott gave me that opportunity. But the next day, I decided to have breakfast in the restaurant itself. And basically, when I sat down, the server came up to me and said, Hi, my name is Dwayne. What's your name? And I don't know about any of you, but I was kind of startled there. You know, as a business traveler, you're just used to kind of being in your zone. But Dwayne actually took the opportunity to introduce himself and ask for what my name was. And I answered that question. And we had a nice little chat. Now, AI did not do that. A human being did. I felt like I was seen by Dwayne and it actually made it for an overall great experience. I actually sent the hotel manager a note to recognize Dwayne for what he did, because it doesn't happen very often. And I think that what I worry about a lot is that organizations are using AI and other types of technology to get between them and their human customers. That we run the risk of over-automating relationships. So what I'd like to do is kind of bring us back a little bit to the other side of the equation when we talk about humanity. So what is a moment of humanity? This is my quick definition. It's anytime you are seen as a person in any type of experience. And we can all, we all know what those are. We know when we're seen and we know when we're not seen. And to me, that is something that we need to kind of re-think when we're looking at this technology and how it applies to our business and how we interact with customers. So when do moments of humanity happen? You might also think of them as moments that matter. First of all, when something goes wrong. How many of you have had an experience where you had to call customer service for something and you were met with bots or automated systems? You don't really feel like you were seen, do you? You don't really feel like they cared about your problem very much. Maybe you ultimately got it solved, but that's the prime moment for a moment of humanity. Or if you're feeling vulnerable or confused or overwhelmed in a situation, that's another one. That happens a lot when we travel and our flights are canceled and we don't know what to do next. Or you want to seek reassurance and accountability. I was talking with a client today at a one-on-one meeting. She works for a bank and she said that there are times when people just need to be reassured that everything's going to be okay. Like maybe there was a fraud attempt on your bank account or something bad happened with one of your investments. Sometimes you need another human being to tell you everything's going to be okay. I'm with you on this experience. Not a probably friendly sounding bot that will just tell you what you need to do next. And lastly, it's not always about you. Expressing gratitude to somebody else would be considered a moment of humanity in my book.