'Je ne sais quoi' is now 'Je ne sais quAl': From metrics to experiences at Genesys Xperience 2025

At Genesys Xperience 2025, CEO Tony Bates showed how agentic AI is shifting businesses from metrics to empathy-driven experiences that build trust.

- By Thomas George

As Tony Bates, CEO of Genesys, took the stage at Genesys Xperience 2025, I was reminded of the French phrase je ne sais quoi (literally, “I don’t know what”), often used to describe that special, hard-to-define quality that makes something stand out. In today’s digital world, that elusive magic is increasingly being shaped by artificial intelligence – or as I thought while listening to Bates, je ne sais quAI: the new ‘special something’ that emerges when AI combines efficiency with empathy. His keynote was not about automation alone, but about augmentation; not just intelligence, but empathy-driven intelligence. Bates painted a picture of agentic AI as a coworker, ushering in a new era of digital labour with its own realities, challenges, and opportunities. At its heart lay one promise: using technology breakthroughs to deliver experiences that build lasting customer trust.

Bates transported the audience to a scenario that many of us have faced - and on both sides of the table. As a business, it is trying to gain and maintain customer trust. And as a customer hoping that trust is never broken or tainted with rough experiences.

He made everyone imagine a car insurance situation. “You have a relationship with your insurance provider. It’s a stressful moment. It involves many steps on the journey. It starts with that initial claim. Then you have to submit documentation. There are status updates. Eventually, you get an assessor who conducts an assessment and makes a decision: Do I repair the car? Is it a write-off? What kind of payment? How am I going to get it? How is it going to affect my ongoing ‘no claims’ moments? Sometimes you have an appeals process. It’s a major emotional decision. And if any part of this journey gets stuck or feels slow or there’s friction or there’s tension, it’s not just a delay in that process, it’s a breakdown in trust that you as business owners have with your customer.”