AI Agents force businesses to rethink customer engagement

July 15, 2026 2 min read

As AI agents gain the ability to make decisions and complete transactions autonomously, organizations are adapting their operating models and governance to support a new form of customer interaction.

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The emergence of AI agents is accelerating changes in how businesses interact with their customers.

Experts have identified four areas organizations should consider as they prepare for the next phase of artificial intelligence.

AI agents are emerging as new participants in interactions between businesses and their customers. As these systems become capable of making decisions, conducting transactions and executing tasks autonomously, experts say organizations will need to adapt their operating models and governance to respond to this new environment.

During FICO World 26, held in May, Nikhil Behl, President of Software at FICO, illustrated the pace of technological transformation by comparing the adoption of different technologies.

While the telephone took 50 years to reach 100 million users, television achieved the milestone in 20 years, mobile phones in five years, and ChatGPT reached the same figure in just two months.

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Today, AI systems process 2.5 billion messages each day, while Google’s AI processes 1.3 trillion tokens per month.

The advance of these technologies is also reshaping customers’ expectations. According to data presented during the event, 86% of consumers said they would trust their primary bank to provide them with an AI assistant, while 62% of Generation Z and Millennials said they would also trust generative AI platforms outside the banking sector to access financial services.

This environment presents new challenges for organizations, which must prepare to interact not only with people but also with AI agents capable of acting autonomously.

Rachael Hadaway, Vice President of AI Product Management at FICO: “Eighty-six percent of consumers say they would trust their primary bank to provide them with an AI assistant, but 62% of Generation Z and Millennials would also trust other generative AI platforms to deliver banking services.”

Four changes organizations should consider.

According to FICO experts, organizations should consider four key areas as they prepare for this technological evolution:

1) Customers’ AI agents are already part of the landscape.

These systems will be able to search for loans, negotiate terms, transfer funds and switch providers autonomously within seconds.

2) Traditional customer loyalty is losing strength.

As switching providers becomes easier and more consumers are willing to use generative AI platforms for financial services, customer loyalty can no longer be taken for granted.

3) AI agents are also transforming internal operations.

These technologies shorten the time between identifying a problem and executing a response, enabling organizations to detect anomalies, design experiments and implement actions much faster.

4) Governance and traceability take on a central role.

As regulatory enforcement intensifies and AI adoption accelerates, automated decisions must be auditable, attributable and supported by clearly defined governance policies.

A change beyond technology.

According to the experts, adopting AI agents represents a transformation that goes beyond implementing new technologies. It requires organizations to rethink how they manage processes, make decisions and respond to an environment where artificial intelligence acts with greater autonomy.

Organizations that prepare for this shift will be better positioned to respond to an environment where technological adoption continues to accelerate and interactions between people and AI agents become increasingly common.