Agentic AI must enhance human connections, Qualtrics chief urges

The rapidly advancing tide of artificial intelligence (AI) is presenting a critical inflection point for companies that aspire to lead the next generation of customer and employee experience. In a wide-ranging keynote at x4 Sydney, Brad Anderson, President of Products, UX Engineering and Security at Qualtrics, issued a direct challenge to business and technology leaders: act now to harness agentic AI, or risk falling behind in an era where the very foundation of experience management is being transformed.

"In our race to implement AI and create efficiency, we have to be careful not to miss out on the big picture, the big opportunity, which is building real human connections," Anderson asserted, addressing an audience of customer and employee experience professionals. He described a marketplace shaped by billions of dollars spent on workflows, automation, and transactional efficiency, with much of that infrastructure neglecting the essence of what customers and employees truly value: authentic connection at every touchpoint.

Anderson illustrated the point with the story of a routine transaction that quickly became a case study in the limits of disconnected systems. "It was incredible - a great experience, smooth, simple," he recounted regarding the initial steps in a mobile purchase journey. But when a payment issue arose, the seamless digital process devolved into a frustrating cycle between chatbot scripts and human agents, with neither able to resolve the problem efficiently. "The agent didn't have access to the right data at the right time, and in the app, it didn't give me a way to self-resolve the issues either." Despite ultimately receiving the product, Anderson said, the fragmented journey resulted in a missed opportunity for the brand to deepen customer trust and satisfaction.

This narrative, he argued, is endemic in industries where investments in CRM and workflow platforms have created robust transactional engines, but lack the connected context needed to deliver personalised value. "You have CRMs that track purchases. You have ticketing systems that track cases. You have chat bots that resolve password issues... But from a customer point of view, who wants to be optimised?"

For Anderson, the path forward lies not in replacing human employees with AI, but in elevating every interaction-digital and physical-by infusing them with understanding, empathy and real-time problem-solving power. The crucial technology enabler, he said, is what Qualtrics calls "experience agents"-autonomous digital workers designed to interpret signals, anticipate needs, and act immediately to resolve issues, all while rooting actions in a nuanced grasp of customer or employee sentiment.

"It's a radical transformation of the experience platform," Anderson stated. "Experience agents will step into that survey moment, and they'll engage directly to resolve and act on the problem that is happening." Rather than relying on survey data to inform later improvements, he explained, these agents would handle feedback and correction in the moment-turning each digital survey, product review, or support ticket into an opportunity for meaningful, on-the-spot resolution.

This shift comes at a time of industry-wide experimentation with AI agents, as major software providers roll out solutions to automate content generation, support workflows, and response handling. Yet Anderson was blunt about the distinction he sees between routine automation and the deeper transformation that experience agents represent: "These transactional agents just don't have the depth of human understanding. But at Qualtrics, we do."

He argued that agentic AI tailored for experience management can fix and personalise interactions across channels-whether the issue arises in a website chat, an employee change initiative, or the feedback loop after a customer journey. "At the core of all this that holds it all together is a deep, authentic human connection, which is only possible when you have the most important signal in businesses, which is human understanding."

To underscore the business stakes, Anderson invoked the lessons of previous platform shifts, recalling the rapid upheavals brought on by mobile devices and cloud computing. Companies that failed to embrace mobile and cloud, he said, saw their market positions erode with startling speed. "They missed the two biggest platform shifts in technology, moved to mobile and then moved to the cloud... not because they lacked talent or technology, but because they failed to adapt to a platform shift."

He drew a direct parallel to the current state of AI. "Right now, we are facing another seismic shift, just like the move to mobile and the move to the cloud, and it's moving even faster. The AI era is not on the horizon. It's here, right now. And what I would tell you is, if your organisations are not already using AI, you are behind."

Anderson was careful to emphasise that AI's greatest power is as a lever for augmentation rather than substitution. "I do not believe that AI is going to largely replace humans, but… organisations and humans using AI are going to replace the organisations and humans not using AI." He challenged leaders to look critically at their own readiness: "Are we helping our organisations and our people become AI proficient? Are we equipping our teams to innovate with AI, not just to automate, but to create, to engage, and to solve?"

For industries grappling with lagging customer satisfaction and rising expectations for personalisation, the decision grows more urgent. "The future doesn't wait, and those who act early shape the next era, giving rise to an entirely new era of experience management that you can get started on today," Anderson concluded.