On April 23, we participated in the second 2026 workshop of the Omnichannel Customer Experience Observatory of the Politecnico di Milano, focused on the theme “From Response to Action: How Agentic AI is Reshaping Customer Experience”.
We would like to share the key trends that emerged and what they mean in practice for Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service programs.
From response to action: what Agentic AI really is
The Observatory described Agentic AI as a new stage in the evolution of artificial intelligence applied to customer relationships: no longer just systems that generate responses, but true agents capable of making decisions and taking action within business processes. These agents are structured into key components - identity, memory, knowledge, policy, and tools - which enable them to learn over time, retain interaction context, and operate in coordination with people and existing systems.
The key shift is from “prompt engineering” to “context engineering”: instead of formulating isolated requests to AI, organizations design real digital work environments where the agent has access to data, rules, and action capabilities to orchestrate parts of the customer journey end-to-end. This paradigm shift requires rethinking processes, roles, and responsibilities between humans and intelligent machines, especially in customer-facing functions.
Trends in marketing and sales processes
In Marketing, the Observatory highlighted that AI agents are now covering the entire process, from market analysis to campaign execution. The following are growing:
- Audience Insight agents, which integrate data from CRM systems, digital channels, and competitive sources to generate predictive insights on customers and markets.
- Content Management agents, which produce and adapt personalized content aligned with brand identity for each channel.
- Campaign Delivery agents, which plan and orchestrate message delivery, optimizing media investments in real time based on performance.
- Monitoring & Improvement agents, focused on attribution, continuous performance analysis, and identifying new engagement opportunities.
On the Sales side, the categories identified by the Observatory cover the entire commercial pipeline. The most relevant trends include:
- Prospecting & Discovery: agents that combine internal and external data to continuously identify high-potential prospects.
- Qualification: voice or digital agents that pre-qualify and qualify leads, collect and verify information, and update CRM systems in real time.
- Preparation & Close the Deal: agents that support sellers and account managers in building proposals and configuring offers, preventing errors and suggesting up/cross-selling opportunities.
- Follow-up & Relationship Building: agents that nurture relationships over time, transforming sales from one-off transactions into assisted, data-driven relationships.
Discussions among participating companies confirmed that Marketing is currently the fastest experimentation ground for Agentic AI, particularly in content and dynamic personalization. In Sales, the focus is more on upstream phases (qualification, profiling, insights) to preserve the value of human relationships in negotiations.
New Service Agents for Customer Service
In Customer Service, the shift from simple chatbots to true “Service Agents” is seen as one of the most significant upcoming transformations. The Observatory identified four main areas:
- Knowledge Management: agents that receive and classify requests, interpret intent, and route them to the appropriate channel or team.
- Front-End Interaction: agents that guide users toward self-resolution, with seamless escalation to human operators in complex cases.
- Operator Support: agents that assist operators with contextual suggestions, targeted information, and automatic documentation completion.
- Field Support: agents that support field activities, from intervention planning to diagnostics and solution recommendations.
Companies also showed increasing interest in multimodal agents—capable of combining voice, text, and images—to deliver more natural and inclusive experiences across the entire journey. It clearly emerged that the priority is not to replace human interaction, but to make it smoother, reduce waiting times, and improve perceived service quality through better orchestration between AI and people.
What companies say about ROI, make vs buy, and readiness
The Observatory’s research on Italian companies engaged in AI-driven CX projects confirms that measuring ROI remains an open issue: benefits are often indirect (efficiency gains, error reduction, quality improvements) rather than immediately visible as pure cost savings. The most common open questions among managers include:
- how to balance in-house development of AI agents with the adoption of market solutions;
- which organizational, governance, and technological prerequisites are needed before scaling Agentic AI;
- in which cases AI agents truly enable cost savings, and in which cases value lies more in speed, quality, and scalability.
Many companies are shifting from a “human replacement” mindset to a “digital teams” approach, where AI agents collaborate with each other and with internal teams to enhance decision-making speed and alignment with business goals. This requires a clear definition of roles, policies, and success metrics shared across IT, business, and CX functions.
How Omega3c can support you in this transition
At Omega3c, we have been working for years on Customer Experience and Voice of the Customer programs that integrate next-generation AI-driven technologies with consulting expertise and dedicated professional services.
The trends highlighted by the Observatory confirm the direction we see in our client projects: Agentic AI becomes an “orchestrator” of relationship processes, capable of connecting data, journeys, and operational actions in real time.
We can help you to:
- assess organizational and technological readiness for adopting AI agents in Marketing, Sales, and Customer Service;
- identify priority use cases, with a roadmap that balances quick wins and more transformative medium- and long-term initiatives;
- design processes and governance models to securely and compliantly integrate Agentic AI into omnichannel touchpoints;
- measure project impact (efficiency, quality, experience) through KPI frameworks and ROI models tailored to CX.
If you would like to explore the workshop results in more detail or understand how to translate these trends into a concrete plan, we are available for a dedicated discussion, starting with an assessment session of your current Customer Experience program.