Artificial intelligence (AI) continues to advance, with developments now extending beyond emotion recognition to emotional engagement with humans. This field, called artificial emotional intelligence (AEI), is becoming increasingly relevant for customer experience (CX) professionals seeking to improve customer interactions.
This is according to Qaalfa Dibeehi, managing partner at Human2outcome, who delivered the opening keynote address at the ITWeb CX Summit 2025, hosted at the Focus Rooms, Johannesburg.
“Africa is there, but is not enough in the game; it needs to do more,” he said, adding that there is opportunity to create more content and invest in AI.
Speaking to the theme of the event, ‘the power of the personal – customer journeys in the digital age’, Dibeehi said while there has always been interest in AI engagement and emotion, AEI really came to the fore in 1997.
He likened AI’s growth to the way CRM evolved from an operating principle to becoming a fully fledged technology.
“Now we ask, ‘can this technology itself emotionally engage with humans?’ The truth is we don’t really know where emotions come from. Theories link emotion with the physical person, the body. AI doesn’t have a body, so does it have emotion?”
The scenario points to an ongoing concern – knowing if we are engaging with another human or AI, Dibeehi explained.
He said there are three domains within AEI: recognition, emotional generation and emotional augmentation. These domains cover the emerging technology’s ability to recognise data points, people, information input and link this with emotions or emotional signals it has been programmed to identify.
“But there are key concerns, such as emotional colonialism – if AI has been developed elsewhere, it will be programmed according to that region’s culture, language, etc,” said Dibeehi.
Emotional agentic AI
Dibeehi said markets are moving forward with agentic AI, a trend where AI serves as a virtual representation of the user.
“The technology has access to all the data points you use, and there are business opportunities linked to this trend, where you could have an avatar, 3D, bot or hologram representing you in a meeting,” he said.
“With AI, the customer experience market must not only ride the bandwagon, it must also drive it.”
Dibeehi foresees a future in which AEI emerges as an established technology, where collaborative robots (cobots) are used to act on people’s behalf and engage with other people.
While the world is not there yet, Dibeehi believes it is entirely possible that cobots will end up emotionally engaging other cobots.
He added that CX professionals don’t have to be technologists, but they will have to be willing to get on board and engage, the same way technologists will have to engage on emotions.
“No matter what happens, simulation does not equal sincerity,” Dibeehi said.
Need for personalisation
Gerrit van der Westhuizen, head: CX Experience Delivery Relationships at Nedbank, spoke on the topic of enhancing CX and realising ROI from initiatives.
His presentation put forward the notion that personalisation is not just a trend; it's a necessity.
A significant majority of customers clearly prefer personalised experiences, he said. This means companies must engage with customers on their preferred channels and platforms.
“By leveraging AI and focusing on personalised experiences, we can create more efficient and satisfying customer journeys. To realise ROI from CX initiatives, businesses need to clearly define CX goals, track key metrics and connect these metrics to financial outcomes.”
Van der Westhuizen said business’ service culture must reinforce customer obsession. It is important to embed service excellence as a way of doing business and engage regularly to "make it leader led".
“We have heard the expression ‘culture eats strategy for breakfast’… with customer journey management, it is important to bring in personalisation. We have the technology, the AI, to do this.”
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