What do customers expect? And what are CX leaders doing? Here’s finding where the twain shall meet.

The recent The Future of Customer Experience in Asia 2025 study by Genesys and twimbit, which surveyed 120 Customer Experience (CX) leaders and 1,400 consumers across seven Asian markets, found that CX in Asia is shifting, marked by a drive to balance empathy with intelligence.

While CX leaders accelerate investment in digital self-service, AI, and agent augmentation, consumers consistently prioritize speed, human helpfulness, and clear communication.

Top-level findings include:

  • Consumer priorities – speed and empathy
    • The top priorities for consumers are fast response and resolution (80%) and friendly and helpful staff (75%).
    • Poor customer service/lack of empathy (68%) and difficulty reaching a human (60%) are the leading reasons consumers stop using a brand.
    • Most consumers prefer a hybrid service model: they are comfortable with AI agents but demand the option to speak to a human (52%).
  • AI and digital adoption
    • AI usage is high, with about 80% of consumers having used chatbots/virtual assistants, but only ~37% describe their experience as positive.
    • Around 60% of CX leaders have deployed or are scaling AI. CX Leaders are moving AI from experimentation to scale, with enhancing digital self-service (54%) and improving agent performance (43%) as top 12-month priorities.
    • Only 23% completely trust companies to protect their data, exposing a regional “trust gap”.
    • The biggest consumer concerns with AI are too generic or robotic answers (46%) and not getting accurate answers (45%).
  • Investment and gaps
    • Over 80% of CX leaders plan to increase CX technology budgets, dedicating 10-25% to AI initiatives.
    • The greatest performance shortfalls cited by leaders are long response times and Inconsistent agent knowledge.
    • Key barriers to broader AI adoption include the cost of AI deployment (51%) and lack of in-house AI expertise (43%).

Zooming in on a few individual countries, the study shows the following:

  • Singapore: Trust as a competitive edge
    • 76% are comfortable with fully digital AI agents on chat and voice, but 55% still want the option to escalate to a human.
    • 78% feel more secure when their personal data is stored in a Singapore-based data centre.
    • CX leaders cite regulatory complexity (50%) and legacy systems (50%) as top barriers to CX improvement.
  • Malaysia: Positive on AI, held back by talent
    • 82% of consumers have seen improvements in customer service from brands using AI or automation.
    • 65% of Malaysian CX leaders plan to invest in AI chatbots and agentic AI systems in the next 12–18 months.
    • 45% of leaders cite lack of talent as the biggest obstacle, followed by 40% citing budget limits.
  • Thailand: Fastest shift toward agentic AI
    • 95% of CX leaders will allocate at least 10% of their CX tech budget to AI within the next year.
    • 60% see agentic AI as the biggest customer-expectation shift, and 50% plan chatbot investments.
    • About 20% of Thai consumers still prefer speaking to a human agent — the highest in Asia.
  • Indonesia: Ahead in AI adoption, high on service expectations
    • 85% of consumers have interacted with a chatbot or virtual assistant in the past 12 months.
    • 77% are comfortable with fully digital AI agents on chat and voice.
    • AI-driven quality monitoring (85%) is the leading AI investment priority among CX leaders in Indonesia