AI decision-making speeds up, but customer experience problems rise

A global survey of 1,000 enterprise decision-makers found AI has made choices faster and more confident, while 38% say at least one AI-driven decision caused a customer experience issue. The report argues companies need better customer context, traceable recommendations, and cross-functional ownership to avoid trading speed for friction.

Why it matters: - Enterprises are using AI to move faster, but the survey shows speed can come with customer-facing risk. - The findings point to a gap between confident decisions and the context needed to understand downstream effects on customers. - The report frames that gap as a business problem, not just a technology issue.

What happened: - TheyDo commissioned Sapio Research to survey 1,000 business decision-makers at enterprises with at least 1,000 employees. - The research covered respondents in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, and the United States. - The survey fieldwork took place in June 2026. - 68% of respondents said decision-making has become faster and more confident since AI tools became widely available in their organization. - 38% said their organization experienced at least one unintended customer experience issue linked to an AI-driven decision.

The details: - Among respondents who reported an issue, 51% saw more complaints or support queries. - 42% said customers lost trust in the brand or experience. - Other reported outcomes included inconsistent experiences, delays and friction, and customers abandoning journeys before completing them. - 73% of respondents at organizations where AI is widely embedded said they are very confident in important decisions, compared with 43% where AI is limited to individual teams or use cases. - Organizations with widely embedded AI were 3.5 times as likely to report full visibility into how decisions affect the customer journey, at 43% versus 12%. - The survey does not establish that wider AI deployment causes these results. - 77% said dashboards, CRM data, and customer feedback tell conflicting stories at least sometimes. - That figure rises to 91% among respondents who reported a negative AI-driven outcome. - 77% said they are expected to make decisions faster than they can fully assess the consequences. - 86% said they would trust an AI-generated recommendation more if it included the underlying data supporting it. - 86% said including relevant customer journey context would also increase trust. - The report recommends connecting customer context at the point of decision, making AI recommendations fully traceable, assessing outcomes across the full customer journey, and creating cross-functional ownership. - The full report, The decision-confidence gap: Why trustworthy AI demands connected customer context, is available online.

Between the lines: - The survey suggests many companies are adopting AI faster than they are fixing fragmented data and shared accountability. - The strongest signal is not that AI is failing, but that AI can amplify decisions when the underlying evidence is incomplete or spread across teams. - The emphasis on traceability and journey context shows decision-makers want AI to explain itself, not just deliver an answer. - The comments from TheyDo and PwC UK point to a broader shift: AI governance is increasingly about customer experience, not only model performance.

What's next: - Companies that want to avoid customer friction will need to combine AI outputs with operational data, customer feedback, and journey context before acting. - The report’s recommendations suggest enterprise teams may need new workflows that give more people visibility into the downstream impact of decisions. - As AI adoption widens, demand for transparent and auditable recommendations is likely to grow.

The bottom line: - Faster AI-driven decisions can improve confidence, but without connected customer context, enterprises risk creating problems they do not see until customers feel them.