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CCW Digital Magazine: 2026 Predictions

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The 2026 Predictions Issue

Inside the Teams, Tech, and Tools

Driving CX Forward in 2026

Real-world examples of how CX practitioners are drawing on interdisciplinary experiences to innovate in the new year

CX is changing at lightning speed. Keeping up will require new ways of thinking.

2025 was another transformative year for customer contact, and the stakes are higher than ever.

As leaders continue to analyze and understand their business through the lens of customer experience, brands have found new opportunities to distinguish themselves. This year we’ve seen unprecedented creativity in the ways brands engage with customers at every step of the customer journey. Notably, the push towards proactive communication from brands in tandem with AI taking on more first-line customer service responsibilities has recalibrated where customer queries arise–just one example of how today’s technology has influenced customer behavior.

Customers everywhere have been looking to the organizations and institutions in their lives to see how they will use AI. At times, the race to deploy the most cuttingedge experiences has led brands to create more problems than they solve.

Since the popularization of ChatGPT in late 2022, customers everywhere have been looking to the organizations and institutions in their lives to see how they will use AI. At times, the race to deploy the most cutting-edge experiences has led brands to create more problems than they solve. Customer expectations have proven increasingly unstable, with giants like Amazon setting unreachable standards for smaller businesses. Businesses of all sizes have come to recognize that frustrating or inconsistent digital experiences can do serious damage to brand reputations.

All of these brands who have undergone change in the past year recognize the same thing: everyone is competing on the customer experience. In what is expected to be another year of ingenuity and progress, CCW Digital has collected predictions from across our network about what 2026 has in store for customer contact.

When leadership is bought into CX initiatives, customer centricity comes naturally

CX leaders are constantly challenging themselves to find the “next big thing” in customer experience–an initiative that has expanded beyond omnichannel and digital experiences to encompass truly innovative tactics for engaging customers. To start discerning predictions from pipe dreams, we tapped the CCW Advisory Board to share their perspectives on what we can expect from CX and contact center teams in 2026.

Featuring insights from:

ADAM MCCREERY DIRECTOR OF CUSTOMER SERVICE DRAFTKINGS

Will a positive agent experience be incumbent on contact center leaders investing time and resources into training on how to effectively use AI tools?

ADAM MCCREERY: AI success in contact centers can be seen in higher CSAT, lower AHT, improved NPS, and reduced cost to serve. But one of the most critical factors is agent adoption and the overall employee experience.

As AI takes on simpler tasks, agents are left with more complex interactions requiring judgment, empathy, and problem-solving. Leaders must prioritize upskilling and provide clear, ongoing training on how to work effectively with AI. Transparency and continuous learning are essential to building trust, improving adoption, and maintaining strong engagement. As AI tools advance and become more integrated into the fabric of the organization, leaders must also prepare for new roles that will be created to develop and manage these AI customer support agents.

As AI evolves, so must training. Proactive communication, education, and sustained investment signal that leadership is committed to using AI to support agents and elevate their success—not replace them.

How important is it that agents trust that their roles are safe from being replaced with AI, and how will the trust gap be reconciled?

ADAM MCCREERY: Proactive, transparent communication is essential to the success of any AI implementation in a contact center. While AI often supports cost reduction and better customer service, employees need clarity on how AI and agents will work together and how leadership plans to invest in developing their skills. This transparency reduces fears of job displacement, strengthens adoption, and prevents the frustration that can undermine service goals. Additionally, advocating team members use these new AI tools to improve how they do their job (e.g. through hackathons) can help the team to feel empowered. In short, clearly communicating the plan and demonstrating a commitment to upskilling will drive stronger engagement and a healthier agent experience.

What contact center processes will AI transform most significantly in 2026?

VINCE TROTTER: In 2026, the biggest shift I see is how AI handles the parts of the job that slow us down the most. Real time guidance is now standard, and it helps us navigate calls faster with better accuracy. AI is also taking over the bulk of note taking, after call work, and form filling, which gives us more time to focus on the customer instead of the screen.

Quality control is also changing fast. Instead of managers reviewing a small sample of calls, AI can scan almost

SHEP HYKEN AUTHOR + CX EXPERT
The interesting part is that leadership and agent priorities are slowly becoming more aligned. Leaders want efficiency and consistency. Agents want tools that reduce friction and help us succeed.

everything and highlight what needs attention. That helps us improve faster and it feels a lot more fair because feedback is based on the full picture.

Are organizations incentivized to make agents’ jobs easier with AI in 2026? Are the AI use cases that appeal to leadership becoming more similar or dissimilar to the AI use cases that appeal to agents?

VINCE TROTTER: I think organizations are finally realizing that making our jobs easier is not only good for morale but also good for business. When AI clears busywork, agents handle more calls with less stress and customers get better results. Leaders see that connection more clearly now that the data supports it.

The interesting part is that leadership and agent priorities are slowly becoming more aligned. Leaders want efficiency and consistency. Agents want tools that reduce friction and help us succeed. In 2026, the AI use cases that meet both needs, like automated after call work or real time coaching, are becoming the ones everyone pushes for. One of the biggest wins of 2025 and I believe in 2026 is Accent Neutralization from companies like SANAS. An AI tool like this really empowers the agents to do their job without fear of how a client feels about their accent. There are still some leadership focused use cases, like forecasting and staffing

automation, that do not matter much to agents day to day, but overall the gap is smaller than it used to be.

How do you see customer sentiment towards AI in customer service changing?

VINCE TROTTER: Customers in 2026 seem more accepting of AI than even a year or two ago, but the patience level depends on how well the AI performs. If the AI solves the problem quickly, customers do not mind that it is AI. Sometimes they prefer it because it avoids long wait times. But if the AI gets something wrong or feels like a wall between the customer and a real person, frustration shows up right away.

Overall, customers expect AI to be part of the experience now, which is a big shift. At the same time, they want a fast path to a human when the issue gets complicated or emotional. The trend I notice is that customers do not care whether it is a bot or a person as long as the help is accurate, personal, and quick.

What else can we expect to see in 2026?

SHEP HYKEN: The personalized experience is now an expectation. Customers expect you to know who they are, their past purchases, and their buying behaviors. They want you to treat them like you know them. Take action by using customer data to provide better support, recommend products, and

tailor marketing messages that remind customers you know them.

CHERYL CHINA: Companies will empower their teams to work smarter and faster with AI-driven tools. Investing in agent experience—through solutions like AI assistance—will become a cornerstone of CX strategy. Tools such as Copilot or ChatGPT will enable both frontline staff and leadership to have clearer, more informed conversations with colleagues and customers.

Routine tasks will increasingly be automated, allowing skilled agents to focus on complex, empathy-driven interactions that truly add value.

2026 will be transformative, where intelligent, outcome focused automation is a must have, not a “nice to have”.

The Future of Customer Communitie s

Community managers play an important role in elevating the customer experience.
The

communities we belong to have a powerful influence on our values and our behavior. Consciously and subconsciously, the roles we play within communities shapes our sense of self. Being in community with others is a crucial need for people, but it is still something that needs to be sought out.

Where brands fit into this equation is a bit murky. Recognizing that their dedicated customer base is a de facto community has helped CX professionals glean valuable insights about their brand that they could not previously identify through customer feedback alone. Customers can even feel a sense of belonging when in community with fellow customers, or those who share a love for a product. Brands are able to leverage this sentiment only when they respect the fragile and temporary nature of communities. This is evident in customer loyalty: customers make the same purchase decisions again and again because of an experience they deem superior, but are quick to pivot if a brand makes a decision they are not aligned with.

Communities are playing an increasingly large role in CX strategy and lifetime value calculations. To get real value out of cultivating and moderating a customer community, CX leaders rely on community managers to forge a connection between customers and the brand.

Question: What is a community trend you foresee picking up in 2026?

EMILY DUNN: I think more niche sub-communities will develop. Thankfully, we continue to see communities build into general— but integral—hubs. However, I believe that community members who have found homes within these communities will now begin to drill down into what is meaningful to them as individuals. I think others will naturally do the same until there are many small communities within one larger community.

SHIWON OH: As we become more tech-dependent, with AI dominating and seeping into every aspect of our lives, people will look forward to taking breaks from these spaces and leaning more into real-life experiences. Of course, tech will still be an important facet of our day-to-day lives. Still, I foresee communities will prioritize making it complement our operations more than ever, rather than becoming entirely dependent on it for human-tohuman connections.

INGRIT MARENA: I foresee community becoming more personal in 2026, but also more independent. For instance, our CCWomen+ members want meaningful networking and the right connections with our guidance, but in many ways, they can do it on their own, too. This includes seeking more virtual ways to connect when they cannot attend our larger flagship events, and building a community that feels accessible not just to senior leaders but to women at all levels.

PRISM

The Prism assesses solution providers with insights and feedback from three perspectives:

analyst user marketplace

Technology Categories for Evaluation

Technology Assessment Framework for Customer Contact & CX Real-Time Agent Assist/Copilot

Workforce Management Chatbot / Virtual Agent

Future-Proofing Contact Center Operations for Amazon Connect

Organizations of all sizes have found that cloud-based contact center solutions like Amazon Connect offer a more scalable approach to the contact center model. Migrating operations to the cloud allows leaders to exert greater control over the mix of omnichannel experiences offered within Amazon Connect, and provides more dynamic control over contact center bandwidth in response to demand or changes in the market.

From cost center to value center: as the digital landscape demands a greater need for regulation, Amazon Connect users find that outsourcing compliance offers the most cost-effective solution.

Beyond agility, one of the proponents for selecting a cloud-based contact center is the turnkey nature of the implementation. Next-generation leaders recognize that systems and processes have become overly complex, and in many cases this complexity detracts from both the agent and the customer experience. As more brands look outside the traditional contact center model, intelligent navigation of the novel challenges facing Amazon Connect usage is essential.

Voice communication is here to stay

Cloud-based contact centers like Amazon Connect may be able to deliver a more cohesive omnichannel experience, but that does not mean all channels are created equal. Today’s customers have strong opinions about how and where they reach out to a brand for support, with 28% of customers saying that being unable to interact in the channel of their choosing poses a challenge.

In fact, the quality and mechanism of customer experiences may matter more now than ever, with 42% of customers stating that they are willing to spend more at a company that offers better customer service. To that end, the ability to make purchases over the phone is non-negotiable for countless customer demographics. For Amazon Connect users, ensuring that these customers have access to the channel they’re accustomed to is a high priority.

At a time when customers demand highly personalized experiences without having to deal with unfamiliar processes and interfaces, the robust integrity of Amazon Connect gets a brand most of the way there. Truly elevated customer experiences can be achieved through a commitment to honoring customers’ dual priorities of security and familiarity by supporting seamless phone payment.

Customers have long gravitated towards the phone channel as the most reliable avenue for seeking customer service resolutions, but as concerns about security have proliferated, they need reassurance that their phone interactions are fully secure.

Security is the differentiator

Migrating to Amazon Connect can be a step towards improved customer journey orchestration, but a more unified omnichannel experience has little bearing on what stands out to customers. Customers have begun to consider omnichannel and 24/7 brand accessibility table stakes, looking outside of digital convenience or personalized aesthetics for what makes positive and memorable experiences.

Since the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) was initially introduced in 2004 to act as a global regulatory oversight on the use of cardholder data (CHD), organizations that accept card payments over the phone have been legally required to maintain compliance. In the years since the initial PCI guidance was released, there have been innumerable evolutions of credit card hardware and software, resulting in continuous updates to the PCI DSS.

Today’s customers are more motivated by privacy and security than ever before. As scams and AI fraud continue to improve, customers are likely to become even more skeptical and develop even higher expectations for the level of security brands provide. Rather than take on the brunt of this responsibility, next-generation brands will partner with specialized firms that have expert-level understanding of industry regulations, compliance, and policy.

Partnering with a compliance expert

For leaders whose migration to Amazon Connect was driven by the seamless and hands-off

implementation, the prospect of compliance responsibilities is daunting. PCI compliance presents a few challenges. One misunderstanding that is common among Amazon Connect users is the conflation of PCI compliance of Amazon Connect itself and the PCI compliance of brands that use the platform. Amazon Connect’s PCI compliance does not extend to its users, which prompts a need for every Amazon Connect brand to manage its own compliance independently.

“Organizations using Amazon Connect who choose a third-party service hosted in AWS benefit from the same billing model, consumption and pay-as-you-go, as well as the ability to retire any commitments they have with AWS.” says Dmitri Muntean, Managing Director of SequenceShift. Solutions like SequenceShift offer a glimpse into the future of contact center technology: by reshaping legacy contact center systems to reflect today’s business needs, brands can deliver higher quality customer experiences at scale.

In the short-term, adhering to PCI compliance can be done internally at a reasonable cost. But PCI DSS is continuously updated to match the innovation taking place in technology and in the market, making it impossible for Amazon Connect users to predict the extent to which regulations will change in a given year. As such, outsourcing PCI compliance to a third party like SequenceShift that also lives within the AWS ecosystem is not only a practical solution, but a far more cost-effective one.

Featuring insights from
DMITRI MUNTEAN, MANAGING DIRECTOR

Generating Customer Obsession Using Generative AI

Choosing the right AI product is the first step, but the success of an AI project is more dependent on the team overseeing it than many leaders realize.

She played a crucial role in establishing the foundation for the company’s commercial mix modeling practices and advising business stakeholders on budget optimization strategies. Today, she is leading the expansion of subscription analytics in the U.S. and serves as the Subscription and Loyalty co-pilot within the Data and Insight department, spearheading cutting edge AI projects aimed at improving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

At Nespresso, the organization-wide value of “customer obsession” is abundantly clear in the projects and customer outcomes they prioritize above all else. In our Customer Data and Personalization issue, we discussed how and why Nespresso holds such a high standard of customer obsession. For our 2026 Predictions issue, we sat down with Christina Grady, a Senior Analyst on the Data Science Team at Nespresso, to dive deeper into how customer obsession is being put into practice through industry-leading generative AI projects.

Before we jump into the new project, could you tell us what your team does at Nespresso, and how the work supports customer centricity?

CHRISTINA: At a high level, we are driving efficiency for other teams to excel, and democratizing their data across teams. So providing our teams with data products or a report or a dashboard that they can use themselves to answer questions and make sure that what they’re working on is of high quality. And that’s how I see the Generative AI project that I worked on–ultimately, we are eliminating the soul-sucking work from this team’s day-to-day by automating that customer contact analysis.

CHRISTINA GRADY

One reason organizations fail to truly democratize data is that these projects often fall outside the scope of individual team members’ roles, and then there is no ownership of them. It seems like Nespresso has truly prioritized giving customers a voice by supporting the Data and Insights team as a shared resource.

CHRISTINA: What being a steward of customer data means for me is making sure that in whatever analysis, I’m very accurately representing the customer’s experience as best as I can. Whether that be making sure that the data is high quality, and being open about what data is and isn’t available, and not just confidently guessing. Ensuring decisions are datadriven. Our department likes to talk about us being navigators of the ship, and I think that comes into play here, because with that lens, we have to sometimes get into certain conversations that can be uncomfortable. If a campaign or a product isn’t performing as expected, we have to sometimes be the bearer of bad news. We are always making sure that we’re keeping our priorities straight, and moving towards providing the best products and the best service, and adjusting if something’s not working, even if that impacts someone else’s day-to-day, or their plans or initiatives that they want to put forward.

How are you using generative AI alongside the customer insights?

CHRISTINA: The primary challenge that our project addresses is that we send out a lot of surveys to customers. And a lot of the questions on that survey are pretty standard, like Net Promoter Score or overall satisfaction. The team that we’re working with has a pretty buttoned up process of reporting on the scores and how they change over time, but they don’t

have a buttoned up process on figuring out why things are changing. So what if customer satisfaction declines? Why is that happening? What’s the source? Is it, for example, something with a carrier that we work with, or is it something with an agent interaction? Is there something breaking on the website? Did a promotion code fail? There are so many different possibilities. And in order to get to the why of what, why scores change over time, they need to read the verbatims.

The older way of working is reading through the free response on that survey and then tagging that response with topics. That’s what the analysts on the customer-facing training and quality team do. They do it monthly, and it takes a very long time. So the primary challenge on the project is giving that time back to them, of manually reading and tagging what’s going on. And so that’s where we began developing an AI model that has the business context of Nespresso and understands the company jargon well enough to read and tag those verbatims as well as those two human analysts.

Like you said, survey data shapes business strategy, informs agent performance, and moves brands forward. For good reason, CX leaders are always trying to improve the quality and depth of their survey data. So why build this inhouse, rather than leverage a survey and analytics tool?

CHRISTINA: Well, there is highly specific context needed for a model to be able to process the language appropriately for Nespresso, and so we needed a tool that we could customize, and it’s cheaper. We don’t need to pay for a product if we can just do it ourselves. So that was one clear reason. This is one of the first AI projects

at Nespresso. And so making sure that we have clear oversight over how it’s implemented was important. Coming back to customer centricity, the quality of the output being very high is very important to maintain that customer centricity because it has to be an accurate model. So I think if you outsource that, you lose visibility into how that works and whether it’s actually being appropriately evaluated.

Do you think that analysts using AI in this way will become the standard?

CHRISTINA: My personal opinion on what will happen and, also what should happen, is that AI can be used to basically make people more productive and happier in their jobs. To be able to focus on true, strategic thinking and critical thinking, rather than the day-to-day minutia and manual, repetitive work. I think if it’s used appropriately, it can really make people more effective. And if it’s misused, it can lead to people losing their jobs and businesses actually delivering less value. So I think these predictions really hinge on the company itself and the data analysts and data scientists and senior leaders that decide how to use the tool. Because it can be used in a good way or it could be used in a bad way.

“Chatbots don’t solve 99% of your customer problems. They just prevent them from reaching you.”
“When I call for customer service, I want to talk to a representative, not a robot.”

“Forced to use the online chat run by an AI bot for a missing package, just to get told to call a number to talk to another AI bot.”

This type of sentiment routinely goes viral on social networks, but it is not limited to a select few Facebook and X power users. It reflects the prevailing view of the masses.

CCW Digital confirms that just 15% of consumers trust chatbots for customer support. Difficulty reaching a live human employee, moreover, ranked as the #1 customer contact pain point in 2025.

Since customers are so pessimistic about automated customer service, it should come as no surprise that most customer contact thought leaders are optimistic about the enduring role of human agents.

The savviest leaders, however, recognize the potential trap of this thinking. They know that while customers may presently be voicing their preference as “human agent over AI agent,” their real hierarchy concerns human-centric vs. robotic care.

Customers are not rejecting chatbots because they treasure the very idea of getting to talk to Mary from customer service or Jason from billing. They do so because the bots they have thus far encountered have been non-conversational, impersonal, and prisoner to scripted policy. Speaking to Mary or Jason, therefore, would at least give them a chance of a more relevant, personalized, and valuable outcome.

The perspective is understandable in the status quo, but it may not last forever.

Thanks to rapid innovation in conversational, generative, and agentic AI technology, self-service platforms are becoming exponentially more intuitive and conversational. Leaders, meanwhile, are becoming considerably more confident letting AI agents make real-time decisions and take meaningful action.

The likely result is that customers will come to appreciate AI agents as legitimate support options. As their comfort level rises, so too will their standard for humanity.

It will not be enough for an employee to simply be a bit more engaging and dynamic than the corporate FAQ page. In order to actually resonate with customers, the employee will have to deliver a level of humanity beyond what could be provided by AI. They will have to connect with customers and their issues in a more compelling manner. They will have to justify the limitations like long wait times and limited operating hours that do not exist in the self-service realm.

According to CCW Digital research, the typical employee falls well short of this standard. The majority of today’s human agents do not demonstrate meaningful levels of courtesy, expertise, or empathy, and two personal anecdotes embody this shortcoming.

Hard time at the hardware store

It may be my most prized furniture possession, but that does not mean I obsessively inspect my marble coffee table every day. The consequence is that some spilled sports drink lingered on the table for several days without my notice. By the time I spotted it, a noticeable stain had formed on the surface.

Amazon sells hundreds of inexpensive marble cleaning products, but given the importance of the table, I did not want to rely on website copy or anonymous user reviews. I wanted a real human to walk me through the situation.

Fortunately, I remembered that I have a charming mom-andpop hardware store right down the block. Unfortunately, nothing about the store experience felt “human.”

Humans can read social and emotional cues.

Modern AI models are trained to adapt to inputs. If someone demands a more concise answer or a different tone, they can update their responses accordingly. Human employees do not, however, burden customers with this responsibility. They read social cues on their own, adapting their conversational approach to the urgency and emotions the customer is subtly (or not-so-subtly) expressing. In that sense, they go beyond answering support inquiries and actually function as support systems.

I walked into the store assuming I would talk to someone who knows tables. Someone who loves talking about furniture, cleaning products, and all the pieces they have restored over the years. Instead, I was greeted with someone who did not care to listen to my situation. Someone who simply told me “I believe some of the cleaners on the back wall are OK for marble.”

That was it. No empathy, expertise, or guidance. I ended up leaving with one of the same products I saw on Amazon, but because it was a local brick-andmortar store, I ended up paying 3x more than I would have online.

Concierge in name only

I traveled to West Hollywood for a friend’s album release party, but insofar as I had never been there, I decided to stay a full weekend and enjoy the neighborhood. Since there was a big boxing match on Saturday night, I figured I would head to a nearby “divey” sports bar and enjoy some fights, drink some California craft beers, and get to know some nice people.

I asked the hotel concierge for any tips on bars that fit the bill. His response? “Maybe Dave & Busters? But I’m honestly not sure, so you should probably Google it.”

I have nothing against Dave & Buster’s, but it hardly constitutes a “townie” bar. And urging someone to Google to make plans hardly constitutes concierge-like behavior.

Humanizing humans: A new standard for future engagement

The human employees in those anecdotes offered absolutely no advantages over AI agents. In fact, they were slower, less knowledgeable, and less convenient to access.

As AI capabilities grow and customer comfort levels evolve, there will be little demand for those kinds of humans. The kinds of humans customers will continue to demand – and contact centers will thus continue to employ – will demonstrate the following four qualities.

Humans understand real-life context. In a robotic service context, a package showing up on December 26 rather than December 24 represents a minor inconvenience. It is an

unavoidable clerical error barely worth acknowledging. In a human-centric one, it is a costly mistake that could ruin a family’s Christmas – and even shatter belief in Santa Claus. It is the kind of thing that requires creative, proactive action or at least a heartfelt showing of remorse.

Humans make sense of scripts. If your product instructions were abundantly clear and your corporate policies were wholly intuitive, few customers would ever contact you. The reason they get in touch is not because they need to hear a real person recite scripts but instead because they want humans to make sense of them. They want someone to explain convoluted, corporate lingo in layman’s terms. They want someone who can recognize when the typical resolution does not apply. Next-generation human employees will be empowered with the first-hand knowledge and flexibility to turn “scripted answers” into “relevant actions.”

Humans can provide personalized recommendations. A restaurant can have a celebrity chef and an appealing menu. But what are the best dishes to order? A bar can book an expensive DJ, post alluring TikTok videos, and serve drinks on a stunning rooftop. But is the environment safe and suitable for a single tourist from out-of-town? Humans can relate to these inquiries and provide answers from the perspective of someone who lived them. Instead of lifelessly weighing star reviews and superficial popularity signals, they can tailor their guidance to individual needs.

Humans can read social and emotional cues. Modern AI models are trained to adapt to inputs. If someone demands a more concise answer or a different tone, they can update their responses accordingly. Human employees do not, however, burden customers with this responsibility. They read social cues on their own, adapting their conversational approach to the urgency and emotions the customer is subtly (or not-so-subtly) expressing. In that sense, they go beyond answering support inquiries and actually function as support systems.

DIGITAL MAGAZINE

ABOUT CCW DIGITAL

As the world’s largest customer service resource, CCW Digital provides 180,000+ members with tools and insights for optimizing their customer contact operations. Through research-driven market studies, virtual events, webinars, analyst reports, advisory services, and its quarterly magazine, CCW Digital drives critical conversations on customer experience design, employee engagement, brand reputation, business intelligence, and the growing impact of artificial intelligence.

CCW Digital is a part of Customer Management Practice

www.customercontactweekdigital.com

Art and Design: Synergy Design

Editor: Audrey Steeves

Marketer: Melinda Acuna

Customer Management Practice 420 Lexington Avenue, 7th Floor New York, NY 10170 bit.ly/2026_predictions

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