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Energy providers build a customer insight powerhouse with AI
5-MINUTE READ
March 17, 2026
Rising consumer expectations have pushed customer service to a breaking point for energy retailers and utilities, many of which struggle to capture its full strategic value. Although self-service digital channels manage more than half of interactions,1 the customer experience has not meaningfully improved. Customer service handles the essentials but struggles to anticipate needs, offer more proactive support and engage energy consumers on their terms.
Customer service leaders at energy providers can seize the opportunity to elevate performance, build trust, deepen relationships and deliver greater value. By offering richer experiences that go beyond resolving an issue, they can drive stronger customer engagement and adoption. By embedding AI in customer care—the end-to-end relationship that extends beyond customer service to also include engagement and product interactions—energy providers can finally deliver more personalized, proactive experiences that create lasting customer value.
Challenges in utilities customer service and experience
According to Accenture’s report Customer service on the brink,2 utilities and service providers in other industries are at a critical inflection point. For utilities specifically, rising customer expectations, aging infrastructure and the net-zero transition are converging with a cost-of-living crisis, and customers have concerns about energy affordability. This combination is creating unprecedented pressure for energy providers to transform.
Existing digital channels have reached their limit: key customer experience metrics—such as net promoter score, customer effort score, customer satisfaction, loyalty, retention and lifetime value—have remained flat for the last three years.3 In short, customers are not as happy as they could be.
Generative AI and agentic AI are opening the door to a new era of customer service. Generative AI delivers intelligence—creating content and insights—while agentic AI applies that intelligence via virtual agents that execute tasks and actions under human direction, redefining what’s possible for personalized, proactive customer engagement.
Consider the potential: customers no longer wait weeks for an escalated complaint to be resolved; instead, an ecosystem of AI agents—with people providing oversight at key checkpoints—can deliver answers in a fraction of the time.
A win-win for utilities and customers
Utilities can seize this opportunity by using AI agents to handle routine tasks, freeing customer service representatives to provide oversight and focus on complex issues and meaningful interactions that build trust and strengthen relationships. We see a clear path forward for customer service: a shift from reactive support or contact toward proactive insight-led customer care, where AI and other digital solutions power predictive and personalized engagement.
Energy providers evolving service models
In our work with clients, energy providers are reimagining their service models along a spectrum—from a more reactive call center to a forward-thinking, insight-driven powerhouse enabled by AI:
Provides reactive customer support in a model dominated by human interaction—with roughly 10% of interactions handled through self-service and AI tools.
Delivers reactive and proactive customer care via a mix of human and digital channels, with self-service and AI handling about 60% of interactions.
Focuses on customer success through proactive and predictive service, enabled by advanced platforms and reimagined operating models, with approximately 70% of interactions managed through self-service and AI-driven engagement.
Anticipates customer needs by leveraging proactive customer insights, with more than 80% of interactions managed through self-service and AI—supported by caring people who resolve everything that needs a human touch.
While the pace and approach vary by organization, this spectrum reflects patterns we’ve observed as utilities and other service-intensive industries modernize customer service to drive efficiency, scalability and stronger customer relationships.
Bringing agentic AI to life in utilities
As utilities progress along this spectrum, they’re applying gen AI and agentic AI in practical ways to transform operations. Our clients are using solutions available through leading customer platforms including Kraken, Salesforce, Kaluza, SAP and Oracle. When complexity demands more customization, they’re developing solutions on hyperscale cloud platforms.
Delivering better customer outcomes with AI
Based on our client work, here are a few examples of how energy providers are embedding AI in customer operations:
Delivers real-time support, content, recommendations and contact summarization to customer service representatives—improving the customer experience while optimizing internal activities.
Provides real-time coaching to representatives, offering personalized recommendations based on the individual customer and proactively identifying solutions and offers for now and the near term.
Addresses customer inquiries through AI-led virtual chat conversations, taking the chatbot experience beyond auto-generated Q&As to deliver customer-specific solutions. In essence, it draws on the same “insight powerhouse” used by customer service representatives—driving engagement, increasing digital channel containment and reducing call volume.
Handles billing inquiries, analyzes disputes, provides explanations and processes refunds end-to-end—reducing manual effort and enabling representatives to focus on the human interactions that require judgment and care.
Accelerates complaint resolution by using agentic AI to handle critical tasks, with people providing oversight at key checkpoints—helping deliver the right solutions and answers to customers faster.
Across industries, our research found that companies with the strongest customer service outcomes are 82% more likely than their lagging competitors to use gen AI to help customer service representatives resolve issues faster and more effectively. They’re also 50% more inclined to use gen AI to resolve problems in real-time—and 87% more likely to deploy the technology to personalize digital channels.4 By reimagining routine tasks as processes delivered by AI agents, organizations gain efficiency and scalability—while enabling intelligent interactions and elevating the customer experience.
From cost center to a relationship and value engine
It’s time for energy providers to take bold steps to transform customer service:
- Reframe customer service as a value and performance driver: Elevate customer service to a board-level priority.
- Accelerate agentic AI integration for predictive, personalized service: Automate routine tasks and unify them as smooth end-to-end processes, enhancing personalization and proactively delivering outcomes across channels.
- Build a future-ready workforce: Equip customer service representatives with hybrid skills, putting data literacy, analytical thinking and empathy-driven communication at the forefront of training programs and career paths.
Utilities have a tremendous opportunity to redefine customer service and elevate customer care through the power of AI—tailoring every interaction to the individual, supported by virtual agents and customer service representatives.
By personalizing interactions, engaging customers of all segments on their terms and fostering collaboration across the organization, utilities and energy retailers can deliver a truly transformative customer experience. Keeping pace with the fast-moving evolution of AI will be essential to accelerating growth, boosting customer satisfaction and staying ahead—in both competitive and regulated markets.
Energy providers can now become a customer insight powerhouse—expanding customer service into proactive, value-driven engagement and setting a new standard for innovation across industries.
Reach out now to discuss how we can help your organization transform customer service.
This content reflects information available at the time of publication, is for general information only, does not constitute professional advice, is provided without warranties or liability and includes third-party marks that belong to their owners with no endorsement implied.
Sources:
1 Accenture, Customer service on the brink, March 13, 2025. Data reflects utilities executives only (n=240).
2 Accenture, Customer service on the brink, March 13, 2025, based on global customer service research with 7,143 consumers, 2,400 customer service-focused senior executives and 150 focus group participants.
3 Accenture, Customer service on the brink, March 13, 2025. Data reflects utilities executives only (n=240).
4 Accenture, Customer service on the brink, March 13, 2025, page 22.