What We Learned From 50 Sales Meetings: The State of Conversational AI in 2024

In 2024, we had the opportunity to speak with several executives across Europe. These conversations centered around Kleio’s multi-agent Conversational AI platform - built to transform how enterprises approach sales and marketing.

Today, we’re taking a moment to reflect on what we’ve learned from meetings with over 50 companies over the past year. We’ve compiled these insights to help you understand how C-suites around the world are thinking about Conversational AI, across industries.

Let’s dive in.

Across sectors, there’s a clear and growing recognition: Conversational AI is no longer a future consideration - it’s a present priority.

Here are a few key takeaways from our discussions, along with predictions for where the market is headed next:

Conversational AI Is Now a Strategic Imperative

Every company we met this year - 100% - has either launched a conversational AI initiative or included one in their 2024 roadmap. This level of engagement confirms that conversational AI has moved from experimentation to mainstream adoption, driven by its potential to create more personalized and engaging customer experiences at scale.

A Limited View Is Holding Some Companies Back

Despite this momentum, 60% of companies still associate conversational AI solely with customer support. While that’s a common entry point, more tech-forward organizations are beginning to recognize the broader opportunity: Conversational AI can drive measurable impact across the full customer journey - from acquisition and lead qualification to conversion and retention.

CEOs Are Taking Notice - and Taking Action

In nearly every meeting, C-level executives were directly involved. The reason is simple: This is now a board-level concern. CEOs understand that the companies best equipped to implement advanced conversational AI will be positioned to capture significant market share - and leave slower competitors behind.

Vendor Frustration Is Slowing Progress

Interest in conversational AI is high, but satisfaction with current vendors is mixed at best. 80% of the teams we spoke with voiced concerns about:

• An overcrowded vendor landscape with little differentiation
  
  
• Legacy systems struggling to adapt to today’s AI expectations
  
  
• Startups overpromising and underdelivering on enterprise readiness
  
  

In this environment, organizations are actively seeking partners with proven AI expertise and large-scale deployment experience, instead of simply vendors with a short-term solution.

The Need for Proven AI Leadership Is Clear

Companies aren’t just buying software - they’re investing in outcomes. What stood out most during our conversations was the demand for battle-tested partners who have successfully deployed AI across Fortune 500 organizations. Our team’s track record at C3 AI - building and scaling AI-native applications at the enterprise level - has been a key differentiator in gaining trust. You can learn more about the co-founding team here.

Where the Market Is Heading: 3 Predictions

Based on these conversations, we expect several key shifts in the market over the next six months:

1. Sales and Marketing Will Take Center Stage

Conversational AI will increasingly move beyond support use cases to focus on top-line growth. Companies will begin deploying AI agents for lead generation, qualification, and conversion - creating new revenue channels through intelligent automation.

2. Complex Industries Will Lead the Charge

Industries with multi-step customer journeys - such as travel, real estate, energy services, and insurance - will be the first to adopt immersive, AI-driven experiences. These early movers will gain a significant competitive edge through better engagement and faster decision-making.

3. Agentic Architectures Will Replace Traditional Chatbots

The future isn’t just about large language models or retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) systems. The real breakthrough lies in multi-agent systems - dozens of autonomous AI agents working together to manage an entire customer journey. This is the foundation of Kleio’s architecture, and it’s where we believe the industry is headed.

Final Thoughts

Conversational AI is no longer a niche capability - it’s becoming a core component of digital sales and customer experience strategy.

At Kleio, we’re focused on helping enterprise teams unlock the full potential of multi-agent AI systems. If you’re looking to personalise your customer’s journey and drive immersive customer experiences, book a call with us here.

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