It may seem counterintuitive to discuss the importance of web experiences at a time when artificial intelligence (AI) agents dominate the conversation. Yet, the website remains one of the most critical components of customer experience (CX). Recent digital research reinforces two important truths: 

  • Websites control brand narrative: They remain vital for brands to control their messaging, provide detailed information and build emotional connections with customers. 
  • Websites provide more than just search results: They’re still necessary for customer service, support chats and for users who want to browse and explore content on their own terms. 

Even as AI transforms the customer experience, the web continues to be a foundational touchpoint — one that must evolve alongside AI, not be replaced by it. 

AI + Web: A Unified Experience Strategy 

The future of customer experience is a continuous cycle of perception, planning and action. And the website plays a key role in this AI-driven loop. 

According to “Customer Experience in the Age of AI,” from Genesys, predictive analytics, customer journey management, and next-best actions — alongside AI agents — rank as the most valuable AI capabilities for companies surveyed. These are the technologies that bring intelligence directly into the web experience. 

“The State of the Customer Experience” report from Genesys further validates this point. The study shows that while phone and email continue to dominate, web ranks in the top 5 channels, with close to 50% of customers surveyed reporting they use the web to engage human or virtual agents. This study also shows that what happens on the website can be a significant driver of dissatisfaction: limited self-service options on the web as well as lack of chatbot on the web are both cited as major drivers of dissatisfaction. 

The website is still the front door and an important one at that. 

The Personalization Gap: Why Data Still Fails to Flow 

Knowing how to personalize experiences from the time a customer entered the front door should be a standard. However, even in this age of AI, where data seems to be everywhere, this remains a challenge. While 97% of customers in the Genesys survey say it’s important to move between channels without repeating themselves, only 16% of CX leaders say they have fully integrated their data and systems to be able to do that.  

Why Analytics Is Still Fragmented 

Analytics should be a team sport but is often an individual, siloed endeavor. Following are the metrics each team within the contact center tend to focus on.  

Contact Center Analytics 

Focused on operational efficiency: 

  • Containment 
  • Average handle time (AHT) 
  • First-contact resolution (FCR) 
  • Transcript analysis for topics and sentiment 

Marketing Analytics 

Focused on digital engagement: 

  • Average session duration   
  • Pages per session   
  • Conversion rate   
  • Click‑through rate   
  • Goal completions   
  • Traffic sources   

Customer Experience Analytics 

Focused on customer lifetime value: 

  • Retention modeling   
  • Market basket analysis   
  • Insights used to feed personalization engines   

The Problem: Data Moves, Insights Don’t 

In most organizations, the contact center sends data to marketing or a centralized customer analytics function where data engineers and analysts manage data pipelines, perform various types of analytics, and visualize the data through dashboards created using custom solutions or off-the-shelf business intelligence tools.  

The model where data flows from the contact center to marketing and back to the contact center should work. However, silos like this can block action. CX leaders surveyed in “The State of Customer Experience” report recognize this, noting that within the next three years they expect to shift from measuring isolated contact center metrics to understanding the impact of the entire experience.  

The Solution: Journey Analytics Embedded in the Experience Platform 

Breaking these silos means analyzing the data as it happens where it happens.  

This requires journey analytics that: 

  • Track experiences across all touchpoints   
  • Interpret behavior in real time   
  • Feed insights directly into orchestration and routing   
  • Are built into — not bolted onto — the experience platform   

This is especially critical for web journeys, which often trigger contact center demand.  

How Web Behavior Impacts the Contact Center 

The ability to break down the walls between web analytics and contact center analytics unleashes new insights, which can create opportunities to improve service through more targeted personalization. Similarly, it can help identify any negative effects — contact center issues that began on the web. 

Positive Impacts 

  • Predict intent from digital behavior.   
  • Guide customers with intelligent engagement options.   
  • Create more relevant and emotionally positive experiences.  

Negative Impacts 

  • Broken experiences cause frustration that carries into every other channel.   
  • Engagement options are hidden or confusing.
  • The website presents too much — or too little — information.

What Journey Management Unlocks 

When journey management is integrated into the experience platform, it enables real-time understanding across the full customer lifecycle. Examples include being able to: 

1. Measure virtual agent intent by marketing campaign to understand if a particular marketing campaign is driving interest or confusion for customers. This can also be analyzed through agent interactions by measuring wrap up codes and summaries by marketing campaign. 

2. Assess effectiveness of personalization by evaluating the relationship between web behavior segment, predictive outcome and actual outcome achieved. 

3. Find opportunities for personalization by analyzing the intent patterns of web activity, particularly valuable for those that have multiple lines of business each with its own web-based service portal. 

Real-Time Journey Analytics Is the Key to AI Success 

A dynamic view combining web behavior, contact center interactions and Voice of the Customer data offers unparalleled visibility. It not only reveals whether AI is working as intended but also highlights new opportunities of where you can apply AI to have the greatest impact. 

Analyzing data in the moment, where the experience actually occurs, allows organizations to fix issues before they escalate, measure the impact of interventions and continuously improve the customer experience. This is the future of journey management in the age of AI — and it begins with bringing journey analytics into the core experience platform. 

See how journey analytics from Genesys can help you understand more about customers’ web behavior so you can improve the overall customer experience.