Customer Experience Predictions for 2025

Economic Conditions

Leading brands will respond to economic struggles by helping consumers manage their budgets and make smarter purchasing decisions.

Quote from Chris Cubba, CRO at Snipp:

“We anticipate a surge in the adoption of brand-funded cashback offers... supporting the uptick in cashback programs, receipt scan technology usage will increase. The result of this will be a simplified, consumer-friendly experience that simultaneously provides brands with rich first & zero-party insights on changing consumer behaviors.”

Quote from Jessica Sunderland, Director, Amazon Business Unit Lead at Kepler:

"With the high likelihood of heavy tariffs... the consumer base should expect to see price inflation. Inflation leads consumers to buy smart rather than buy by impulse. Amazon has begun leaning into AI in their consumer platforms, making AI generated shopping lists."

Comment: Many consumers have faced economic difficulties in recent years, and this situation looks set to continue. Brands are focusing on helping customers get the most out of their budgets.

Generative AI

Generative AI is fundamentally changing how consumers discover and purchase products, information and answers to their questions.

Quote from Jen Jones, Chief Marketing Officer at commercetools:

“What’s particularly noteworthy is the shifts we're seeing in how consumers discover and purchase products. Traditional search engine-driven journey is being bypassed, as more consumers are turning to marketplaces and platforms like Amazon and TikTok for personalised recommendations and trend-driven insights.”

Quote from Tifenn Dano Kwan, Chief Marketing Officer at Amplitude:

“2025 will mark the rise of the answer economy. Traditional search engines will no longer be the default way people get information or the answers to their questions. Already, 60% of Google searches in the US and EU result in zero clicks, as many people don’t want to click endlessly to find what they’re looking for."

Comment: For the longest time, traditional search engines have dominated how consumers find and research products and services. Generative AI and other platforms are fundamentally changing this landscape.

Organic Brand Marketing

Changes in the search environment and saturation in other digital channels will see a resurgence in organic brand marketing.

Quote from Gregory Kennedy, VP of Marketing at Alembic:

“Building a strong, memorable brand will be back in vogue as the way to create new demand and capture attention before consumers are even in a buying mindset.”

Quote from Justin Crowe, Founder & CEO at Parting Stone:

“I believe we are at a stage where businesses are heavily leveraging generative AI, leveling the playing field between small brands with limited budgets and large corporations with vast resources for branding, copywriting, marketing strategy, and communication optimization."

Comment: In the face of changes in the search environment, increasingly saturated and expensive digital channels as well as a potential tsunami of bland AI content that will make it hard for brands to stand out in a sea of sameness, it’s not surprising to countenance a resurgence in organic brand marketing.

Challenges for Generative AI

After the hype and excitement of 2024, the application of generative AI in the service and experience space will face some challenges in the coming year.

Quote from Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO at Content Guru:

“2025 could be a tough year for generative AI. After a lot of hype, it is likely to drop into the ‘trough of disillusionment’ in the coming year, and might already be there. Gartner predicts at least 30% of generative AI projects will be abandoned after proof of concept by the end of next year, due to poor data quality, inadequate risk controls, escalating costs, and unclear business value."

Comment: There is no doubt about the transformative potential of generative AI, particularly in the service and experience space. However, with economic conditions remaining tight, new AI projects and investments are likely to face increased scrutiny in the coming year.

AI Education and Capacity Building

Education and capacity building will help organizations ensure that their AI investments deliver value.

Quote from Suzanne Steele, VP and MD, UKI, Middle East and Africa at Adobe:

“Coming into 2025, organisations will need to turn their attentions to enablement and education, ensuring everyone across the business – from users to leadership and advisory boards – understands not just how AI and generative AI should be used to boost productivity and enhance the customer experience, but also where the guardrails are to ensure responsible and appropriate use."

Comment: After a couple of years of pilots and experimentation, organizations are starting to realize that to get the most out of generative AI requires a new set of skills and capabilities.

Specialized AI Solutions

Many organizations will move away from generic generative AI tools and gravitate towards more specialized solutions that are better able to address their specific objectives.

Quote from Barry Cooper, President, CX Division at NICE:

“In 2025, we will see more businesses choose or switch to trusted AI providers, built on a heritage of experience and owned rich data, in order to realise immediate business value from AI. Companies will move away from generic AI tools that lack the foundational industry-specific data and proper guardrails required to deliver accurate, relevant and appropriate results.”

Comment: This prediction is an echo from one of last year’s predictions that suggested that we are likely to see brands gravitate to specialized providers to address specific issues.

First and Zero-Party Data

In pursuit of being able to deliver a personalized and engaging experience, brands will shift their focus towards first and zero-party data.

Quote from Tara DeZao, Director, product marketing, adtech & martech at Pega:

“Despite the decision to keep third-party cookies intact, in 2025, we’re finally going to see a sustained shift away from this model toward first-party and contextual data instead."

Comment: Brands weaning themselves off third-party cookies has been a long time coming. However, in the face of the challenges they are facing due to the changes taking place across digital channels and in the search environment, as highlighted above, we are likely to see brands finally make a concerted shift away from a reliance on third-party cookies to first and zero-party data.

Clean Data

Brands will realise that the key to unlocking the potential of AI and delivering a stand-out customer experience lies in clean data.

Quote from Cathy Mauzaize, President - EMEA at ServiceNow:

“AI is the data, and data makes the AI. Without good quality data, AI projects cannot succeed.”

Comment: Getting your data house in order was one of the key messages in last year’s predictions. Building on that, this year’s prediction about clean data shows that there is still work to be done. However, there is no escaping this requirement.

Trust

Building and maintaining a foundation of trust with customers will be at the heart of leading brand strategies.

Quote from Zig Serafin, CEO at Qualtrics:

“But it's not just about offering more; it's about building trust. Consumers prioritise accurate information over mere speed or convenience. They demand that companies fulfil their basic commitments and deliver on promises.

Comment: Back in 2018, Forrester published some research that introduced the idea of the ‘privacy versus personalization’ paradox, where their research found that 75% of consumers expect a personalised experience, but 49% have privacy and data protection concerns.

Contact Centers as Real-Time Data Goldmines

Contact centers will emerge as real-time data and insight goldmines.

Quote from Marcel Barrera, Chief of Strategy & Operations at serviceMob:

“Service and support functions, traditionally seen as cost centers, will emerge as strategic growth engines.”

Comment: Organizations, helped by advances in analytics software, are waking up to the fact that contact centers spend more time talking to customers than any other part of the business.

A Connected, Collaborative Approach

This will be facilitated by a cultural shift that sees