Picture someone excited about AI-enhanced experiences. How old are they? Your instinct might point toward Gen Z, but growing up with technology doesn’t automatically make them enthusiastic about it. Instead, it raises their bar for experiences. Learn what Gen Z thinks about AI and experience, and how to shift your generational AI strategy accordingly.
Comfort with AI doesn’t translate to valuing it
Gen Z grew up expecting frictionless digital experiences. They’ve never needed patience or workarounds to get something done online. That familiarity created comfort, but not excitement, and makes AI feel more like a baseline feature than an innovation. Our report, The Invisible Advantage, reflects that: just 45% of Gen Z says AI-powered experiences are extremely or very important to them.
Compare that to Millennials, 53% of whom say AI-powered experiences are very or extremely important to them. Millennials are in the technology sweet spot. They remember the pains of dial-up internet, or having to call a number from their landline just to get basic information. When an AI chatbot handles their problem in seconds, it still feels exciting.
Millennials also experienced enough innovation in their formative years to feel comfortable with today’s technology. For those in certain life stages—raising children, peaking in their careers, caring for aging parents—technological efficiency can make a tangible difference.
But older generations show that the relationship between comfort and enthusiasm isn’t linear. Baby Boomers value AI-powered experiences the least, with just 29% saying they’re very or extremely important. Gen X, while much higher at 41%, still falls below average. Both very high comfort (Gen Z) and very low comfort (Baby Boomers) correlate with lower AI enthusiasm. Millennials hit the inflection point where comfort meets novelty.
How lived experiences translate to higher expectations
Growing up digitally native also shapes how Gen Z values other parts of CX. They consistently rate practical CX fundamentals as somewhat less important than older generations. Gen Z rates ease and convenience 8 points below average, safety and security 10 points below average, and clear and simple interactions 10 points below average.
It’s not that Gen Z doesn’t care about those things. It’s that they assume these attributes will be part of every experience as a baseline. Gen Z has higher expectations, and they notice when brands fall short. When asked about actual brand experience performance, Gen Z reported lower satisfaction with clarity, ease and convenience, and safety and security than other generations.
This distinction matters for strategy. For older generations, an easy experience is a differentiator. For Gen Z, it’s a requirement. Gen Z only notices usability when it’s not up to standard, and they feel the negative impact more than older customers might.
What actually captures Gen Z’s attention
Three things stand out in the data as especially valuable to Gen Z:
- Immersiveness. Gen Z is 12 points above average in wanting stimulating visuals, audio, scents, and flavors as part of their experience. They want interactions that engage them emotionally and sensorially. Using AI to deliver immersive, engaging experiences could register as a genuine differentiator.
- Personalization. Gen Z values personalized interfaces and layouts more than other generations: another area where AI has clear applications. Their comfort with technology and personalization translates to higher demand for experiences built specifically for them. This requires foundational capabilities, including unified customer identity data and the ability to activate that intelligence in real time across messaging, commerce, and customer service channels.
- AI agents. Gen Z shows above-average interest in AI agents (+5 points), suggesting they’re open to more autonomous, AI-driven interactions. The pattern holds: Gen Z consumers aren’t anti-AI. If an AI agent can handle something meaningfully better than the alternative, they’re interested. Effective AI agents need contextual awareness of the customer’s history, preferences, and current situation to deliver superior outcomes.
What this means for your AI strategy
If you’re building an AI strategy around “reaching younger audiences,” you need to use AI in specific ways for Gen Z to take notice. It goes back to two imperatives from our report, The Invisible Advantage: Five CX Imperatives for AI That Earns Its Place: make technology the enabler, not the experience; and match AI investments to actual customer needs. AI needs to solve a real problem or unlock something that wasn’t possible before.
For Gen Z, that often looks different than it does for Millennials. Millennials are impressed enough by how the technology improves upon their previous brand experiences. Gen Z needs you to lean into the areas that uniquely interest them: immersive experiences, personalized interfaces, and AI agents that meaningfully improve outcomes. But you still need to meet their baseline expectations. If you don’t, they’ll be more measurably disappointed than other generations.
The bigger picture
These findings challenge conventional thinking about generational marketing. We tend to assume that reaching younger audiences means embracing the latest technology, but the data tells a different story.
If you’re competing for Gen Z’s attention and loyalty, the winning play isn’t to show off the most cutting-edge AI for its own sake. The outcomes matter more: delivering reliably on fundamentals like convenience and safety, while leaning into the areas that uniquely excite Gen Z.
In other words, meet Gen Z’s baseline or lose them. Exceed it in the right ways, and you’ll capture more attention than simply delivering the fundamentals ever will.
This means thinking strategically about platform investments. Organizations with unified CRM and identity foundations that connect customer data with marketing technology, commerce, loyalty, and service capabilities are positioned to deliver both the fundamentals and innovation.
Merkle and Salesforce help build this foundation: unifying customer identity data for real-time personalization across channels, and deploying AI agents with contextual awareness across voice, chat, email, and service. Together, they enable the integrated approach that transforms Gen Z’s high expectations into competitive advantage.
