Human-centric AI is changing the way customers experience technology

Automation during its formative years focused solely on speeding up tasks like checkouts, password resets, and 24/7 customer support availability. At the time, that’s what customers needed the most. In 2026, customers want systems to pick up on intent, recognize urgency, and respond empathetically in a way that fits their situation.

Human-centric AI has now advanced to meet these expectations, and in the coming sections, you will see how this shows up in product and customer experience workflows.

AI Is getting better at reading human signals

With sentiment analysis and natural language processing (NLP), chatbots are now able to detect emotions such as frustration and urgency.

70% of CX leaders are seeing this live in projects where chatbots personalize customer journeys based on user requests and already handle around 80% of routine questions at a much faster pace than live agents.

When a customer raises a concern about a delayed medical delivery, a human-centric AI system picks up on the anxious tone and responds with language that directly addresses the situation, prioritizing the case rather than sending a generic “Your ticket is received” response.

Chatbots are often labeled as robotic because they repeatedly ask customers to restate their queries, something a human agent would rarely do. That perception changes with today’s technology, which embeds context within systems and follows a customer’s query from a WhatsApp chat to a phone call for complete issue resolution without starting over.

AI and humans collaborate to deliver accurate outcomes

Full automation can raise concerns around fairness and reliability for customers, which is why many companies are adopting a Human-in-the-Loop (HITL) approach, where AI works alongside human experts to resolve queries.

When AI handles data-heavy tasks like scanning past tickets, humans apply judgment to determine which tickets qualify, so issues resolve faster and in a predictable way.

How AI creates personalised customer experiences

To understand what customers, need before they say a word, AI systems identify patterns in behavior and emotional cues to anticipate expectations. Based on these signals, they predict needs and recommend solutions that address the problem directly.

Imagine you move from New York to Los Angeles, and your bank’s AI reaches out with guidance on local home insurance, along with the next steps and documents to prepare. This level of relevance is possible with human-centric AI.

Beyond recommendations, AI can also spot technical issues early. If there’s a lag during a session, the system can notify the customer and adjust settings immediately to resolve it.

This is how AI evolves into a trusted partner in the customer journey, supporting people proactively rather than reacting after problems appear.

Explainable AI (XAI) is one of the trust-building systems that helps customers understand how the results and outputs generated by AI and ML models are trustworthy and how their data is used to improve their experience.

Approach to human-centric AI

One of the prominent online food ordering and delivery services, expanded into new delivery categories. As a result, customers began facing friction during checkout, which limited basket size and impacted conversions. 

Leading digital engineering companies apply human-centric data intelligence to redesign the pre-checkout experience around real customer shopping behavior. Through experimentation and contextual bundling, the solution increased relevance without adding complexity. 

The outcome was higher cart conversions, larger basket sizes, and stronger long-term customer value.

AI has never been more accessible or widely used. As AI continues to take on a bigger role in shaping customer experiences, organizations need to ensure that human judgment remains part of the process. This balance helps companies move beyond resolving issues to building lasting relationships with their customers.

Ramesh Krishnamurthy

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Ramesh Krishnamurthy, President & Business Head - India & GCC, Indium