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Unveiling Customer Success Trends: Insights from Gainsight’s 2025 Report

Gainsight, a leading global customer success platform, has recently released its much-anticipated Customer Success Index Report 2025, based on a comprehensive survey of over 400 global enterprises across various industries and sizes. The report sheds light on the evolving landscape of customer success, particularly focusing on advancements in AI technology and a notable shift in performance metrics from mere activities to actual customer outcomes.

A Leap into AI Adoption

The findings reveal a remarkable 52% adoption rate of AI in customer success organizations. This marks a significant increase compared to previous years, evidencing that an increasing number of companies are starting to recognize AI as a strategic imperative for enhancing customer engagement. While the adoption rate still lags behind marketing (81%) and sales (69%), it highlights a robust upward trend, with AI being utilized for crucial functions such as automating customer interactions, summarizing meetings, generating follow-up communications, and producing customer situation summaries— all aimed at alleviating operational burdens and enhancing productivity.

Challenges in Advanced AI Utilization

However, amid these advancements, the report also identifies several hurdles that organizations face when leveraging AI technologies. Issues such as a lack of in-house expertise, concerns about the reliability of AI outputs, and the complexities of system integration remain prominent barriers. This suggests that many enterprises are still in the process of maturing their AI capabilities. Leading firms are taking a strategic approach by focusing on high-value use cases before scaling their AI implementations.

Growing Interest in AI Agents

The report indicates an increasing interest in AI agents and autonomous workflows, which are seen as game-changers in customer success operations. These technologies are particularly well-suited for high-frequency tasks such as onboarding, contract renewals, usage promotion, and customer education. As the role of AI evolves, it becomes clear that AI is not set to replace Customer Success Managers (CSMs) but to enhance their decision-making abilities and relationship-building capabilities.

Shift in Evaluation Metrics

A significant shift has been observed in how customer success organizations evaluate their effectiveness. Key responsibilities have transitioned from simply managing activities to achieving meaningful customer outcomes. This shift is underscored by the decline in organizations that view customer support as their primary responsibility, dropping to less than 20%. Instead, customer success is now positioned as a crucial function that actively drives customer value and business growth.

The Rise of Gross Revenue Retention (GRR)

The report highlights an increasing focus on Gross Revenue Retention (GRR) as a key performance indicator (KPI), with the percentage of firms adopting GRR expected to rise from 45% in 2023 to 62% by 2025. GRR serves as a critical measure of pure customer retention, indicating a growing trend among companies towards stable and predictable growth models. Additionally, the rise of Customer Success Qualified Leads (CSQL) signifies the emerging importance of customer success in generating future revenue opportunities.

Digital Customer Success: A Standard Infrastructure

Digital customer success is no longer an optional strategy but is becoming a standard infrastructure across all customer success teams. Organizations are increasingly investing in various digital platforms, including Learning Management Systems (LMS), online communities, in-app guides, and automation programs. Notably, the EMEA region is leading the charge in digital customer journey strategies, indicating a proactive design tailored to geographical and linguistic diversities.

Research Methodology

Gainsight, in collaboration with Benchmarkit, conducted this benchmark survey between September and October 2025 to compare the organizational frameworks, performance measurement methods, and the deployment of digital customer success strategies among participating companies across North America. The survey included executives from various tiers of management, including CXO level executives, SVP/VPs, and Directors from over 400 firms, ensuring a comprehensive understanding of the current landscape of customer success practices.

About Gainsight

Gainsight is an industry-leading customer success platform that focuses on enhancing customer success, product experiences, and community engagement. By employing data-driven methods, Gainsight identifies at-risk customers and facilitates systematic processes to resolve issues, thereby improving product usage and reducing churn. Esteemed organizations such as GE Digital, SAP Concur, and Box utilize Gainsight to accelerate their business growth. For more information, visit Gainsight.

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