Not long ago, CX was mostly about convenience. Faster answers. Fewer clicks. Cleaner digital journeys. In 2026, the bar will be higher and the questions tougher. As AI takes on more of the work, customers will care less about how slick an interaction feels and more about whether they can trust what is happening. At the same time, leaders will be asking tougher questions: Is this actually making a difference?
If 2025 was the year many learned, sometimes the hard way, how difficult AI at scale can be, then 2026 will be the year CX leaders separate real value from noise.
These are the trends I believe will matter most, and what I will be watching closely as they unfold.
Agentic AI moves from “pilot” to “product”
Agentic AI is moving from pilot to product, but not in the way the early hype promised. The real winners will not be the companies racing to deploy the most agents. They will be the ones willing to slow down just enough to redesign workflows end to end so agents can do task-specific work.
- In sales, that shift shows up as agents taking ownership of tightly defined responsibilities such as monitoring pipeline health, executing follow ups, and keeping CRM data clean and current.
- In customer support, these agents will diagnose familiar issues, apply fixes across backend systems, and close tickets end to end for repeatable cases, escalating only when judgment is required.
The key here is clean data, clear decision boundaries, and human escalation paths that are designed on purpose, to avoid compromising on customer experience.
My view for 2026 is speed will beat perfection as long as the data is trustworthy. Operational discipline rather than agent count will separate real progress from noise.
Omnichannel becomes multimodal and orchestrated
Customers do not think in channels. They think in outcomes. In 2026, more journeys will naturally span multiple modes.
- Voice will be used when urgency or emotion matters.
- Chat will be used for speed.
- Visual support will be used when things get complex.
- Asynchronous messaging will be used for continuity.
AI will increasingly help orchestrate these experiences, but only if context travels with the customer. The biggest mistake I see is adding channels while fragmenting knowledge, identity, and history. That is how customers end up feeling like they are starting over every time.
My view for 2026 is that CX leaders will invest less in launching new channels and more in orchestration. Shared context. Consistent identity. Unified knowledge. Smarter next best action. Not every journey needs every mode. Fit for purpose design will beat complexity every time.
ROI pressure forces a reset on AI in CX
Many organizations are still waiting to see real returns from significant AI investments. Some have already had to pull back, reintroducing humans into journeys that were automated too quickly or without a clear payoff. At the same time, executive confidence in AI has not disappeared. Expectations remain high. That tension is exactly what will make 2026 a defining year for CX leaders.
The questions will get sharper:
- What are we automating, and what should stay human by design?
- What value are we bringing to our customers and the business?
- Which outcomes beyond cost savings, should we be measuring?
My view for 2026 is that AI will start being treated like any other serious capability investment. Clear value cases. Real adoption plans. Ownership across the life cycle. The phase of experimentation without accountability is ending.
Trust remains a non-negotiable
Two realities are colliding. Digital threats are accelerating, and customers are no longer naïve about risk. At the same time, AI is fundamentally reshaping the attack surface, enabling voice cloning, identity spoofing, synthetic customers, and autonomous agents at scale.
We are entering the early stages of an AI-versus-AI economy. Customers are already using AI to negotiate, transact, and advocate on their behalf. In response, companies are deploying AI to detect fraud that increasingly looks indistinguishable from legitimate human behavior.
This year, the most competitive companies will treat trust as a first-class customer experience metric, not a background control. It will be measured, managed, and optimized alongside ease and satisfaction. Identity confidence and verification success will become as critical as conversion and retention.
This also demands a shift in design philosophy. Security can no longer be layered on after the experience is built. It must be embedded from the start, intentionally, visibly, and with the customer in mind.
In the AI era, trust will no longer be assumed and customer experience teams, not just security teams, will be accountable for it.
What this means for CX leaders going into 2026
If there is one takeaway, it is this: 2026 will reward companies that treat CX as a system, not a collection of touchpoints.
Here is the lens I will be using:
- Deploy agentic AI with discipline, supported by clean data, clear boundaries, and human escalation by design.
- Less channels, more orchestration and measure meaningful outcomes, not just interactions.
- Build trust through security, transparency, and identity directly into the journey.
- Save human empathy for the moments where it truly matters.
At Schneider Electric, we often say technology is most powerful when paired with people. I believe 2026 will make that truth harder to ignore and easier to prove than ever before.
Read more about how we are pairing people and technology and redefining customer experience, with our mySchneider platform.
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