How does your customer service stack up?
Key takeaways from Freshworks’ 2026 Customer Service Benchmark Report
Ask 10 customer service teams how they’re “using AI,” and you’ll get 10 different answers. Some say AI is a chatbot bolted onto a help center. Others call it the operating system for their entire service org. That range of how deeply AI is embedded into customer service operations and the measurable business impact it's driving is the focus of Freshworks' 2026 Customer Service Benchmark Report.
"Not long ago, CX leaders debated adopting AI,” says Freshworks CMO Kady Srinivasan. “Now, leading organizations are moving beyond isolated use cases and extending AI across workflows and channels, giving it greater autonomy, connecting it to the right context, and continuously improving how people and AI work together."
Drawing on more than 33,000 anonymized customer accounts, 1.2 billion tickets, and five industries, this year's report covers the latest global and industry benchmarks and offers practical guidance from top-performing organizations. Here's how AI works inside teams that have made it fundamental to how service runs:
Operationalizing AI: Graduation from pilot to plumbing
The most telling shift in this year's report is that AI has stopped being a project and started becoming infrastructure. Nearly 44% of teams report using AI across their operations, up sharply from 32% a year ago, with 48% expecting their AI investment to increase significantly over the next 12 months.
How McLaren, New Balance & more turn service performance into a competitive edge
The adoption curve shows that businesses are steadily moving from AI experimentation toward more widespread adoption. Almost 68% of organizations are piloting AI, while 15% have already integrated it across their organization. Companies with mature AI implementations have already processed millions of interactions, optimized their workflows, built richer knowledge bases, and developed the expertise to work effectively alongside AI, giving them a compounding advantage over time.
AI handles the volume. People handle the moments that matter.
The report found that a fully AI-led model breaks down exactly where it matters most, in high-value interactions. The winning model pairs AI's scale with human judgment: 70% of teams say AI's biggest impact is automating repetitive queries. At the same time, AI agents are delivering an average deflection rate of 83%. The result? Resolution times are falling from more than nine minutes to under five minutes as AI agents handle a larger share of conversations, which frees agents and budgets to focus on the moments that actually need a human.
Great service feeds loyalty, customer retention
Multichannel used to mean being everywhere was enough. The new bar is about continuity and providing a great experience, no matter the touchpoint. With 53% of teams saying service is decisive in winning customers over competitors and 42% saying it directly shapes renewals and expansions, the gap between presence and performance will directly impact growth.
See how your team stacks up against leaders
The measure of a great platform isn't 100+ AI features; it's whether those features resolve more, remove more friction, and make agents more effective. "AI adoption was the starting point," says Srinivasan. "What matters now is what you make possible with it."
Download the full Freshworks 2026 Customer Service Benchmark Report 2026
