UK businesses adopt RCS & AI for customer messaging

Infobip has published research showing a sharp rise in the use of Rich Communication Services and AI-led customer communication in the UK, based on an analysis of 20 years of business-to-customer messaging data.

The study drew on 628 billion mobile interactions in 2025 and 3.8 trillion messages over the past two decades. It found that UK businesses are moving away from single-channel notifications towards conversations spread across messaging, email and voice.

One of the clearest shifts was in RCS, which recorded a 174% year-on-year increase in UK traffic. RCS penetration in the country has reached 70%, with adoption helped in part by concerns over fraud on other messaging channels.

Verified sender markers on RCS are becoming more important as businesses respond to the rise in smishing attacks. This puts greater emphasis on trusted, identifiable business messaging as companies try to reassure customers.

SMS still accounted for the largest share of global traffic in the dataset, making up 62% of activity. In the UK, SMS traffic grew 27%, indicating that businesses are adding newer channels rather than replacing older ones outright.

Channel Mix

The research also pointed to a steep decline in the use of just one communication method. Ten years ago, 73% of platform traffic involved a single channel, but by 2025 that figure had fallen to 2.3%.

Nearly 98% of interactions now take place across multiple channels. This suggests companies are increasingly combining services such as WhatsApp, RCS, email and voice within the same customer journey.

WhatsApp remained the most widely used messaging app in the UK in the study, reaching 85% penetration and recording fivefold year-on-year growth. Its scale makes it a central part of how many businesses now handle customer contact, from notifications to two-way exchanges.

The report also highlighted growing interest in agentic AI, describing it as a move beyond standard chatbots towards AI agents that can manage autonomous, goal-driven customer journeys across channels including WhatsApp, RCS and email.

The findings indicate that businesses are looking for systems that can handle more of the interaction flow without relying on a single channel or a fixed script. This reflects a wider change in customer service and marketing, where communication is becoming more continuous and conversational.

For companies operating in the UK, the data points to a market where customer engagement is increasingly shaped by reach, trust and flexibility. Richer formats such as RCS offer branded and verified interactions, while established services such as SMS continue to provide broad coverage.

The result is a communications environment that is more fragmented in channel terms but more integrated from the customer perspective. Rather than choosing one route to market, businesses are stitching together several forms of contact depending on context and user preference.

The report set out this broader direction before Infobip commented on the findings.

“Our 20-year dataset makes it clear that the age of single-channel engagement is over. The UK market has shifted towards a diverse ecosystem where brands orchestrate conversations across WhatsApp, RCS, Email, and Voice. In future, engagement will be omnichannel, conversational and increasingly powered by Agentic AI. Businesses understand the necessity to meet customers on the channels they use daily, creating conversational and personal experiences which build trust,” said James Stokes, Head of Enterprise for UK & Nordics at Infobip.