Technology is revolutionising how brands connect with customers – delivering hyper-personalised experiences that adapt instantly to individual needs. The opportunity isn't about replacing humans, but creating something much more powerful together.
I've never been more excited about the potential for transformation in customer experience than I am right now, in 2025. We're witnessing the sunrise of something genuinely revolutionary – where AI's analytical power combines with human creativity to create experiences that feel almost magical in their intuitive understanding of each person's unique needs.
According to our New Minds, New Markets report, with research conducted by Oxford Economics, by 2030, AI-friendly consumers will drive up to 55% of all consumer purchasing activity. That translates to approximately $4.4 trillion in the United States alone – with similar impact globally: $690 billion in the UK, $540 billion in Germany, and $670 billion in Australia. This isn't a distant future but a transformation happening now, with leaders having less than five years to adapt.
I'm fascinated by a world within touching distance where every digital service instantly recognises not just who you are but your specific limitations and preferences. For instance, my mother struggles with banking because everything has gone digital. Yet, in the AI-enabled future, an elderly person wouldn't need to struggle through a website designed for tech-savvy 30-somethings. Instead, AI would immediately reconfigure that experience – adjusting font sizes, simplifying navigation, and providing appropriate assistance – all without requiring manual adjustment.
This isn't simply about accessibility features that users must activate. It's about services that dynamically shape themselves around each person. The technology anticipates needs based on a comprehensive understanding of the user.
In the future, AI will become the invisible orchestrator that eliminates the frustrations of digital engagement. For example, banking services that recognise when you're confused, healthcare platforms that detect uncertainty and proactively simplify complex decisions, and retail experiences that adapt to your current mood and context.
76% of customers expect personalized interactions, and for customer care specifically 70% of customers expect that any person they interact with will already have full context of their journey without the need to request further details
Today's challenges: Technology leaps while organisations struggle to adapt
Current reality falls significantly short of this vision. Although generative AI creates astonishing possibilities, most organisations struggle with the fundamentals to harness its potential.
The primary obstacle isn't technical capability, but organisational structure. CX remains fragmented across numerous teams, each with different priorities and technology stacks. Marketing, digital product, customer service, and operations rarely share a unified view of the customer, let alone coordinate their efforts to create seamless experiences.
This fragmentation has severe consequences. Customers face jarring transitions between touchpoints. When switching to the app, a person researching on a website must explain their situation again. Issues described to chatbots must be repeated to human agents.
Fear also presents a significant barrier to progress. According to the New Minds, New Markets research, many customers remain wary of AI-driven experiences, particularly during critical moments like making purchases, where the Comfort Quotient drops to just 27 compared to 47 during the discovery phase. There's considerable anxiety within organisations, too – from designers worried about job security to executives concerned about significant investments in unproven technology.
However, these fears must be appropriately contextualised. Like the Industrial Revolution, AI doesn't simply eliminate jobs – it transforms them. AI frees designers from repetitive tasks, allowing them to focus on more thoughtful, strategic work.
The risk of delaying meaningful AI engagement isn't just a missed opportunity but an existential threat. Organisations that continue offering one-size-fits-all solutions will lose to competitors who adapt.
Google Cloud is already seeing how marketing teams are already benefiting from the rapid creation of personalized content, customer care can now deliver better and more efficient service by using conversational agents. These agents not only assist customers directly but also provide help to the employees attending requests by bringing up relevant information based on the conversation in real time. Furthermore, AI is enabling employees to provide a more personalized and complete service to customers by making information easy to find in catalogs, knowledge bases, and other useful enterprise data.
Realising the vision: How to transform your CX approach
Transforming CX for the AI age requires fundamental changes to how organisations approach technology, design, and operations. The goal isn't simply to adopt AI tools, but to create an integrated ecosystem that enables truly intelligent experiences.
Start by focusing on the learner phase of the customer journey – where AI can have an immediate impact with minimal risk. Our research shows consumers are most comfortable with AI during this discovery phase. Your priority should be ensuring your offering appears prominently in AI-mediated discovery processes, with content strategies optimised for voice and conversation.
Once you've established a presence in the discovery phase, expand to post-purchase experiences. Customers show surprising comfort with AI handling product support and maintenance, with a Comfort Quotient of 39. The purchasing phase requires more careful handling, as customers remain cautious about relinquishing control of transactions, with AI combining convenience while leaving the ultimate decision to the customer.
Throughout this journey, prioritise human-centred design that builds trust through transparency and control. Make AI capabilities visible but not intrusive, and always provide clear paths to human assistance when needed.
This is precisely where Cognizant Moment excels. Unlike traditional approaches that fragment CX across departments, Moment integrates research, strategy, design, product, and marketing capabilities under one organisation. We're breaking down the silos that typically separate these functions, enabling unparalleled collaboration in developing AI-enabled experiences.
What makes Moment uniquely powerful is our approach to orchestrating intelligent ecosystems. We connect experiences and their underlying data, technology, and operations across the enterprise. This scale and scope enables our clients to leverage generative AI alongside human ingenuity to create dynamic, hyper-personalised experiences that continuously adapt to individual needs.
As a new practice area built on Cognizant's decades of digital experience expertise, we bring fresh perspective without legacy constraints. We have the freedom to test, learn, and iterate without pressure to get everything perfect the first time.
Most importantly, we quantify the value of what we create. Measuring how many people convert from an old design to a new one and calculating the revenue impact changes the narrative around CX design. Creating pretty interfaces is so last year. Today – and tomorrow – it's about developing thoughtful journeys that drive measurable business outcomes.
“Having a clear business goal to achieve and a way to measure the outcome is crucial, consider whether you are looking to increase sales & revenue, see the impact in lifetime value or conversion rates, increase loyalty or CSAT, or increase employee productivity or talent retention”, Google Cloud.
A clarity moment for business
Organisations that successfully orchestrate technology, people, and data to deliver seamlessly personalised experiences will create substantial competitive advantages. Those that fail to adapt risk becoming irrelevant as customer expectations rapidly evolve.
This presents a clarifying moment for today's business leaders. The most successful will look beyond functional applications of AI to reimagine how they engage with customers throughout the journey. They'll build organisations capable of orchestrating intelligent experiences that continuously evolve. They'll also create partnerships between human ingenuity and AI capabilities that deliver truly transformative customer experiences.
The path forward isn't about treating AI as another digital tool but embracing a fundamentally different approach to understanding and serving customers. It's about creating experiences that feel like magic – not because they're flashy or technically impressive, but because they intuitively understand and adapt to each person's unique needs in the moment they arise.
Cognizant Moment offers end-to-end capabilities to transform CX using AI for businesses ready to embark on this journey. By bringing together research, design, technology, and strategy into a coherent whole, we help our clients break down organisational silos and create the orchestrated, intelligent experiences that tomorrow's customers will demand.
“It is important to consider unified end-to-end platforms that adapt to a customer’s current context and needs, with Responsible AI in mind which will build trust with our customers, and making sure to have the appropriate security mechanisms that will protect customer data”, Google Cloud
To learn more about orchestrating intelligent, human-centred experiences with AI, contact us to discover how Cognizant Moment can help your organisation meet customers where they are – now and in the future.
