What the New Generation Expects

Picture this: you need to change your address with your pension provider. In 2026. You know what should happen — you log in, change it, done. Ten seconds.

Instead, you find a phone number. You wait in a queue. You explain who you are. Someone types it in. You get a confirmation in the mail three days later.

That's not a service. That's a punishment for being a customer.

Gartner found that 62% of Millennials will search for answers on their own before ever contacting support. But here's the part that should worry every business: 39% of Gen Z will give up entirely if they can't self-serve. They won't escalate. They won't call. They'll just leave.

Meanwhile, 92% of Gen Z prefer mobile banking apps over visiting a branch. The bar has been set by Revolut, Wise, and Apple — and it applies to pension companies, insurance firms, and government services too. Nobody gets a pass anymore.

I sent a message to a company recently. Simple question. Got a reply eleven days later. Eleven days. In a world where I can have a package from the other side of the planet on my doorstep in 48 hours.

The disconnect is staggering. And my generation feels it viscerally.

Salesforce reports that 80% of consumers now expect real-time interaction. HubSpot found that 67% expect their issue resolved within 3 hours — not days, hours. And when younger consumers get a response in under 10 minutes, 71% say their experience improves drastically.

The thing is, we don't even think about this consciously. We don't sit there calculating acceptable response times. We just feel it. When something is slow, it feels broken. When something is fast, it feels like someone respects our time. That feeling is the entire brand experience compressed into a single moment.

There's something absurd about downloading a PDF form in 2026. Printing it. Finding a pen. Signing it. Scanning it. Emailing it to an address that auto-replies saying someone will get back to you in 5-7 business days.

Every step of that process is a small insult to the customer's intelligence.

74% of customers expect to do anything online that they could do in person or by phone (Salesforce). That's not a preference — it's a baseline expectation. And when companies fail to meet it, people vote with their feet: 61% of Gen Z have switched banks in the past two years, often because the digital experience wasn't good enough.

In insurance, the picture is even more damning. Insurity found that 26% of Gen Z actively avoid filing claims — claims they're entitled to — because the digital process is too painful. A quarter of young customers would rather leave money on the table than fight a bad interface. That's not laziness. That's a verdict.

When I open Netflix, it doesn't show me every movie ever made. It shows me what I'll probably enjoy, based on everything it knows about me. It's not magic — it's just paying attention.

So why does my bank show me the same generic homepage as everyone else? Why does my insurance provider send me offers for products I already have? Why does my pension fund treat a 25-year-old the same as a 55-year-old?

73% of customers expect companies to understand their unique needs. 62% expect them to anticipate those needs before they ask (Salesforce). This isn't about being creepy with data — it's about being respectful of attention. When you show me something irrelevant, you're telling me you don't know who I am. And in an age where every app I use knows me intimately, that feels like negligence.

In pensions, this matters enormously. 88% of under-25s want their investments aligned with their personal values (Pensions Policy Institute). Nearly half don't believe the state pension will exist when they retire. This generation isn't passively waiting for retirement to happen to them — they're actively thinking about it. And they expect their pension provider to think about it too.

Here's something older generations of business leaders often get wrong: they think making things easy is a competitive advantage. It's not. It's table stakes. You don't get credit for it. You only get punished for not doing it.

PwC found that 32% of customers would stop doing business with a brand they loved after just one bad experience. One. And for Gen Z, brand loyalty is essentially a myth — only 7% of 18-34 year olds report feeling loyal to any brand.

We're not being difficult. We've just seen what's possible. We use apps every day that are beautiful, fast, and intuitive. When something isn't, we don't blame ourselves — we blame the people who built it. Because we know that every moment of friction is a decision someone made. And we're increasingly unwilling to accept those decisions.

The numbers prove it: neobank adoption among Gen Z hit 61% in 2025. Digital-only banks grew their Gen Z user base by 37% in a single year. The money isn't following brand names. It's following experience.

Everything I've described so far — the speed, the personalization, the always-on availability — used to be expensive. You needed armies of support agents, sophisticated recommendation engines, and 24/7 operations. Most companies couldn't justify the investment.

AI removes that excuse.

37% of Gen Z and Millennials already say they'd work with an AI agent for faster service (Salesforce). 82% would choose a chatbot over waiting on hold. And Gartner projects that by 2029, agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues.

But this isn't just about chatbots answering FAQs. It's about a fundamental reimagining of what interaction looks like. Instead of navigating menus, you just say what you need. Instead of reading a 30-page document, you ask a question and get your specific answer. Instead of waiting for business hours, your request is handled at 2 AM on a Sunday.

Revolut is already doing this. Their AI assistant — AIR — isn't a feature alongside the banking app. It IS the banking app. You don't tap through tabs. You just ask. Freeze a card, buy an eSIM, analyze your spending — all in conversation.

That's not the future. That's today. And it's what everyone else will be measured against.

Gen Z makes up 40% of global consumers and 27% of the global workforce (McKinsey/Gartner). Within a few years, they'll be the majority of the market. This isn't a trend to monitor — it's the ground shifting under every business that isn't paying attention.

The insurance industry faces a $500 billion digital shift driven by these expectations (PYMNTS). Banks that don't adapt are watching their youngest customers walk out the door. Pension providers that still think in paper and post are becoming irrelevant to the people who will need them most.

For those of us building software, the mandate is clear: digital-first, personal by default, instant where possible, and always — always — respecting the customer's time.

Not because it's trendy. Not because the data says so. Because it's what people deserve. And because the companies that get it right will win everything.