How AI Can Improve Customer Experience: Reduce Customer Effort, Not Just Your Cost
By Pedro Sonda, dooop
AI improves customer experience when it reduces the customer’s effort in any of the five moments of the journey: finding the company, choosing among options, purchasing, starting to use the product, and resolving problems. Examples include immediate and accurate answers to questions, relevant recommendations, faster proposals, and agents who already know the customer’s history. When AI reduces the company’s cost by transferring effort to the customer, with generic responses and difficulty reaching a person, the experience worsens. The test is whether the customer spends less time and energy than before.
Updated October 2026.
The Tension Between Efficiency and Experience
In a Gartner survey of 5,728 customers, 64% said they preferred companies not to use AI in customer service, and 53% said they would consider switching companies if AI-based service was announced. The main concern was difficulty speaking with a person (Gartner, 2024).
At the same time, when AI supports agents, experience can improve: in a study with 5,179 agents, generative AI support increased productivity and improved customer sentiment during conversations (Brynjolfsson, Li and Raymond, NBER).
Interpretation: customers do not reject AI itself; they reject the poorer experience that many implementations produce.
dooop Framework: The 5 Moments of the Journey
| Moment | Typical Customer Effort | How AI Can Reduce It |
|---|---|---|
| 1. Find | Research suppliers, compare scattered information | Clear and consistent information that AI assistants and search engines can use |
| 2. Choose | Understand which option fits their case | Recommendations based on declared needs; answers to technical questions anytime |
| 3. Purchase | Wait for proposals, fill out forms, repeat information | Faster proposals; pre-filled forms; purchase completed within the conversation when appropriate |
| 4. Start Using | Learn how to use, find setup information | Guided onboarding; assistant with product documentation |
| 5. Resolve Problems | Explain the problem multiple times, wait | Agent who already has the history; immediate resolution of simple cases; easy escalation to a person |
Moment 1: Experience Begins Before Contact
Some buyers start the journey by asking AI assistants. Google users who saw an AI summary clicked on traditional results in 8% of visits, compared to 15% for those who did not see it (Pew Research Center, 2025). If the AI response describes the company incorrectly, the experience starts poorly before the customer even arrives. See How to Prepare a Brand for the Next Generation of Search.
Moment 3: Purchases Within the Conversation
In 2025, OpenAI and Stripe launched direct purchasing inside ChatGPT for participating merchants (Stripe, 2025). For some segments, the purchase experience may happen outside the company’s website.
The Effort Test
For each AI use with customers, answer:
- Does the customer resolve what they need in less time?
- Do they need to repeat less information?
- Can they speak with a person when they want?
- Do they receive correct and specific answers for their case?
- Do they know they are interacting with AI?
If any answer is "no," the use is likely transferring effort to the customer.
Personalization with Responsibility
Personalizing with AI improves experience when it uses information the customer expects the company to use, for their benefit. It crosses the line when it feels like surveillance or uses data without a legal basis. The LGPD requires purpose, necessity, and transparency in personal data processing.
What to Do Now
- Map your customer journey across the 5 moments and identify where effort is highest.
- Apply the effort test to existing AI uses.
- Start with the moment of greatest effort, not the one with the greatest cost savings for the company.
To map opportunities throughout the customer journey, explore dooop’s discovery at dooop.com.br/discovery-de-oportunidades-de-ia.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does AI make service impersonal? It can, if it replaces people without criteria. It can also make service more personal by giving agents customer context and time to converse.
How to measure AI’s effect on experience? Combine effort indicators (time to resolve, repeated contacts), satisfaction, and retention, comparing before and after.
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About dooop
dooop is a consultancy based in Caxias do Sul (RS) that prepares leaders and organizations to transform artificial intelligence into business capability through strategy, governance, and training.