Australian retailers are in the thick of peak buying season and contact centres are under huge pressure – think long queues and stressed agents with no margin for error. But this year, AI is becoming one of the key differences between brands that thrive and brands that fail.
From Black Friday through to the Boxing Day and New Year sales, contact centres have become the frontline of the retail experience. Traditionally, the response to peak demand was to throw more labour at it. But staff who are new and inexperienced, or burned out from longer and more frequent shifts, don’t typically lead to improved customer interactions.
Instead, many Australian retailers are handing over large parts of customer service to agentic AI. It’s not the first wave of retail automation – chatbots have existed for years. What has changed is capability.
Agentic AI can not only answer questions but also take action across connected systems. This may include retrieving orders, scheduling deliveries and processing refunds and returns.
The distinction is critical. Service has shifted from passive assistance to active execution. Gartner recently forecast that agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues – without any human intervention – by 2029.
Benefits for retailers
While the obvious advantages of AI agents include cost savings and offering round-the-clock responses, the benefits are much more extensive – both on the retailer and customer side.
For human agents, AI can do a lot of the heavy lifting, from automating routine tasks such as getting customer details and looking up accounts, to triaging queries to the appropriate level of urgency and care.
This can save staff from a lot of the stress that frequently results in high turnover and lower customer experience. According to the 2025 Australian Contact Centre Industry Best Practice Report, contact centre agent attrition increased to 29%, with most exiting the industry entirely – a trend that threatens service consistency and customer loyalty, retention and ultimately profits.
Agentic AI gives retailers an adaptive layer that can absorb peak season disruptions, from volume to payment outages and delivery failures. It keeps customers informed in real-time, preventing frustration from turning into churn.
Research in Australia reveals issue resolution is a leading factor for consumers when it comes to customer support, with 91% rating access to correct information – a key element of customer success – as highly important.
Shoppers happy to embrace AI
Australians are increasingly embracing AI, from product research and inspiration to solving issues, with 57% of Australian consumers saying AI inspires them to shop and AI usage surging to 45%.
However, maintaining a human in the loop remains critical. Even 80% of “AI natives” – Australians aged 18-24 who have had early exposure to AI and are currently active users – still want the option of human support.
A commonly cited concern among consumers is that AI responses can be too generic and not correctly understand their issue. A third of AI natives also feel that disjointed CX experiences could be a deal-breaker for brand loyalty.
Retailers and brands must ensure that AI is implemented thoughtfully, responding to customers where possible but also empowering human agents to deliver a more personalised response.
Australia’s retail sector operates with some of the world’s tightest margins, highest operating costs and fiercest global competition. Agentic AI is not a silver bullet for every challenge, but is rapidly becoming a competitive imperative.
This festive season will be the first true stress test. Gaps will show up first in queue times and service failure, and later in churn, margin and market share. Retailers who leverage AI may not only survive peak demand, but can lock in a long-term economic advantage in customer experience.
By Lukas Carruthers, Head of CX at Zoom APAC
This article was first published by RetailBiz