Table of Contents
We’re at a tipping point in customer experience. We’ve lived through both the hype and the reality of applying AI to real-world problems. At times, innovation and transformation feel surprisingly close. At others, they still feel just out of reach. Across industries, the conversation has shifted from experimentation to execution, from tools to outcomes, and from automation to trust.
As 2026 approaches, we asked 10 customer service leaders to share their honest perspectives on where we are today—and what’s likely to matter most next.
Where customer experience stands today
Customer experience is facing quite a bit of adjustment. Some progress has been real, but it hasn’t been consistent. Many teams are stepping back to look at what’s actually working, where customers are pushing back, and what needs to change as AI moves from pilots into everyday use.
Lora Lawson
VP Contact Centers at Careington International Corporation
"I don’t think you can really gauge where the next five years [are going] within the contact center industry. Everything is changing so quickly. Personally, I’m looking six to twelve months out, and then still trying to understand what the technology is doing [before] gauging from that point on"
George Tillotson
SVP Client Solutions at Peak Support
"I think we’re [at a point] where people have moved forward and now are pulling back a little, because of what we’re hearing from customers about not enjoying the current experience.
So I think there’s a little more trust to be built with consumers [so] that these experiences can be, are gonna be what they want it to be [so they] won’t be afraid to engage. "
Mackenzie Smith
VP Customer Growth at ASAPP
"Today, encountering helpful, empowered AI agents in customer service feels like a treasure hunt—it’s a lot of effort, you’re unclear on the reward, but if you discover it, you’re thrilled. I bet that in five years, customers will expect agentic, helpful, and elegant experiences from the world’s biggest brands in the channel of their choice. "
What great CX must deliver customers to earn trust
Even as tools evolve, the basics of great customer experience haven’t changed. Customers still want to feel understood, supported, and confident that their needs are being handled fairly, securely, and without unnecessary friction.
Vanessa Gabor Karri
Director of Customer Success at Mobly
"Really great customer experience is rooted in a couple of things. The customer feeling understood, heard, and that their challenge or issue has been resolved, right?
So to your question on how AI and automation play into that, my personal view is regardless of what tools you need to get there, as long as those three things are met, then you're really delivering that great customer experience."
Craig Radford
CEO and President at 360 Direct Access
"I see more and more companies adopting accessible services within their customer service solutions within that time. Because right now, the deaf community is very behind. They're left behind. They don't have an equitable experience, the same as hearing people.”
Khash Kiani
VP Security and Trust at ASAPP
"Next-gen CX AI will check identities and devices and catch fraud in real time, without slowing customers down. Workflows stay smooth, and risk gets handled before anyone notices. Security teams can finally focus on strategy instead of chasing fires.”
The shift to agentic, human-centered experiences
As AI becomes more capable, the way CX is delivered is starting to change. Rather than replacing people, agentic systems are beginning to take on the busywork—freeing human agents to focus on judgment, empathy, and the moments that matter most.
Lucinda Callahan
Director of Customer Service Operations at One Inc
"The future of CX will be a blend of human and agentic working together, and it'll be a great thing.”
Alex Christiano
Director of Marketing and CX at Canlan Sports
“The hardware that comes between us will be removed, and the conversation will be led by agentic AI to free us up to have more human connection. So my hope is that as we learn more about AI and understand it better, that it's gonna give us the freedoms that we never had before or we never thought were barriers to the progress of human beings and where we want to go in the future. ”
From experiments to advantage: who will win
The next phase of customer experience won’t be defined by pilots or proofs of concept. The organizations that pull ahead will be the ones that operationalize AI in an agentic enterprise, tie it to real outcomes, and keep learning as expectations continue to rise.
Chris Arnold
VP Contact Center Strategy at ASAPP
“Over the course of the next several years, generative AI applied to CX will rapidly shift from experiment to scaled outcomes that completely reshape how consumers interact with the companies in which they choose to do business.
These outcomes will be workflow automation that requires minimal human intervention while achieving breakthrough levels of first contact resolution, hyper-personalization that understands historical context and proactively acts to resolve customer needs, all with a cumulative effect of lower cost to serve, higher satisfaction, and substantial gains in shareholder value.”
Priya Vijayarajendran
CEO at ASAPP
“Over the next 2–3 years, the winners in AI-powered CX will be the organizations that treat AI as a business transformation engine—not a science experiment. They’ll deploy AI to reduce cost-to-serve, expand capacity, and improve customer experience with measurable outcomes tied directly to the bottom line.
They’ll retain ownership of their data and prioritize transparency, reliability, and explainability as strategic differentiators. And above all, they’ll learn and adapt faster—continuously refining processes and operations around new AI capabilities. In this market, speed isn’t just efficiency—it's survival.”
What comes next
As we move into its next phase of customer experience, the shift toward the agentic enterprise is becoming clearer. AI is no longer something teams experiment with on the side; it’s becoming embedded in how work gets done across the organization. The leaders who pull ahead will be those who use agentic systems to scale judgment, earn trust, and deliver better experiences—consistently, not occasionally.
