LAS VEGAS – “Most companies don’t have an AI problem. They have an operating model problem.” That’s the message Genesys Chairman and CEO Tony Bates delivered today to a packed audience at Xperience, the company’s annual customer conference. Then he laid out the roadmap to fix it.
When it comes to experience, your biggest competition is no longer in your industry alone. It’s every brand, everywhere, creating better experiences. The AI tools your customers use every day — from their desktop applications to the phones in their pockets — are capable, personal and indispensable. Those same customers have come to expect that their needs are met without any friction or stress. And that’s the kind of experience they now expect from your brand.
Closing that experience gap, Bates argued, is a business imperative, one that will decide who wins in the agentic era and who scrambles to catch up. This, Bates said, is the most consequential shift in customer experience in years, and it demands better experiences, better economics and an operating model built to keep pace.
Experience has become a competitive battleground — and a priority in every boardroom, Bates said, because the competitive bar keeps rising. The State of Customer Experience” report by Genesys found that 92% of consumers surveyed expect every company to match the best experience they’ve ever had, and 85% say poor service has made them spend less or walk away.
The operating model for the agentic era
Most enterprises already have plenty of AI — virtual agents, copilots, and knowledge tools bolted onto a process still designed for humans to execute. Bates was direct: more standalone AI won’t solve the problem. It creates more silos and friction. The fix isn’t more AI. It’s a different operating model.
Until now, the model has been human-centric, even when it’s AI-assisted. People interact with customers, determine their needs and execute the steps, with AI only improving efficiency.
In an agentic operating model, AI determines intent, decides what steps to take and completes many tasks autonomously, sometimes handling an entire interaction. Humans shift toward setting goals, defining boundaries, providing judgment and overseeing the system. They’re still in charge. But AI is an active partner in getting to the outcome. We are in the era of the human + AI workforce.
This is where the real transformation happens — and where the businesses that will lead the next decade pull away from the pack. Bates outlined five fundamental elements that are redefined in the shift to an agentic operating model, stressing that they’re interconnected, each one enhancing the others to evolve how organizations operate.
Connected experiences
Today, most customer interactions are disconnected. The customer engages; the company responds; the interaction ends. In an agentic operating model, experiences reflect a holistic customer journey, connected across every touchpoint, carrying context, intent and memory forward, so every interaction makes the next one smarter. “The payoff,” Bates says, “isn’t just better service. It’s about creating stronger customer relationships, greater loyalty and more growth for your business.”
Human + AI workforce
Today, most organizations see humans as the workforce and AI as a tool. That shows up in how they manage the two — with separate systems and processes. As AI takes on more responsibility, that separation stops making sense. In an agentic operating model, humans and AI together form a hybrid workforce, with major implications for how work is routed, forecasted and managed, as well as how success is measured.
Outcome economics
Traditionally, contact centers manage performance with metrics like average handle time (AHT) and first-contact resolution (FCR). They’re good indicators of efficiency. But they don’t measure what matters most — the economics of the outcomes. In an agentic operating model, cost and revenue per outcome replace traditional efficiency metrics as the main measure of success, continuously optimizing instead of just tracking them.
Governed autonomy
Getting AI to take action isn’t the hard part. It’s giving AI the freedom to act while knowing it will stay within the boundaries you define. That’s why governance can’t be an afterthought. Permissions, policies and guardrails must be built into the orchestration platform from the beginning. Every action the AI takes must be observable and auditable. And, when necessary, it must escalate to a human instead of failing silently.
Continuous transformation
We tend to think of transformation as a project with a beginning and an end. But when customer expectations, workforce needs and AI capabilities are constantly evolving, transformation can’t stop. In an agentic operating model, it becomes an adaptive, continuous process. Both the AI and the organization keep learning, adapting and improving while the business runs.
An agentic operating model, Bates said, requires a platform built for it from the ground up, not a collection of point solutions. Genesys Cloud is that platform – an agentic orchestration platform for CX, built as a system of outcomes on contextual intelligence, with four components working together:
- The Genesys Cloud Navigator (planned for general availability late 2026) is the front door to your brand, the first touchpoint customers encounter. It understands what they want to achieve and combines that intent with what you already know about the customer.
- The Genesys Cloud Orchestrator (planned for general availability early 2027) perceives, reasons and plans the best path to achieve the desired outcome, adapting as the interaction unfolds.
- The Actors execute the tasks required. They include your people, AI agents, workflows, tools and enterprise systems, all brought together around the customer.
- Underneath it all is an enterprise-grade Foundation that maintains context, enforces governance and learns from the outcomes.
This is the infrastructure for an agentic operating model, and it powers these capabilities:
- The power of real-time turns every customer conversation — what they’re asking for, their sentiment, what’s working and what isn’t — into context in real time, which makes the next decision smarter and the next action more relevant.
- The power of the ecosystem recognizes that context doesn’t live in just one system. It’s spread across the CRM, billing systems and other platforms. Genesys Cloud connects to that full ecosystem to improve every experience with richer context and take action across the systems where the work gets done. And that ecosystem keeps expanding, with new Agent2Agent (A2A) interoperability and deeper integrations with strategic technology partners.
- The power of trust provides governance, security, privacy, compliance, resilience and ethics as foundational elements built directly into Genesys Cloud from the start. You define the policies, permissions and guardrails. The platform orchestrates AI within those boundaries. Actions are observable, auditable and escalated to a human when needed.
- The power of outcomes ties it all together. Genesys Cloud doesn’t just automate moments. It orchestrates end-to-end experiences for the outcomes you choose, whether that’s containment, agent productivity, customer retention, or conversion. Your choice tells the platform what to optimize for.
Bates noted that this combination of capabilities is already producing results for Genesys customers.
- More than 90% automation containment
- 35% agent productivity gains
- 16% reduction in voluntary employee attrition
- 25% sales conversion improvement
- 85% customer retention improvement
- Up to 900% POI (proof of investment)
Bates closed with a simple piece of guidance for a complex transition: think big, start small, scale fast. No organization is going to make the shift to an agentic operating model overnight. There’s no need to. But there’s also no time to wait. Every day that your organization sits on the sidelines, competitors close the gap — and leave you behind.
Many companies are already on their way, using AI to assist employees, automate more interactions and run workflows. Those already on Genesys Cloud are positioned to take the next step. And the next. All the way to delivering seamless experiences with agentic orchestration.
Wherever you are in your journey, it’s time to take the next step. Start with one experience and one outcome that matters and move at your own pace. Every step toward an agentic operating model is a step toward leading the next decade of customer experience.
Learn more about how to win in the agentic era.
Xperience 2026 continues this week in Las Vegas with sessions from Genesys teams, partners and customers who are already putting agentic orchestration into practice. On-demand keynote replays will be available at genesys.com/xperience following the event.
A2A interoperability is expected to become generally available in the fourth quarter of the company’s fiscal year (Nov. 1, 2026-Jan. 31-2027).
Forward-Looking Statements
Statements in this blog that are not historical or current facts are forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. Unless required by law, Genesys undertakes no obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements to reflect circumstances or events after the date of this blog.
