2026 CX Trends: What Customers Will Expect Next

The lights are barely packed away from the 2025 holiday season, but CX leaders are already planning how to show up differently in the year ahead.  

The stakes are only getting higher. AI is no longer experimental, budgets are under pressure, and customer patience for unreliable self-service is close to zero. At the same time, executives expect service operations to cut costs and fuel growth, not just “handle tickets.” 

Looking across analyst research, technology forecasts, and what leading outsourcing providers and technology vendors are saying, a clear picture emerges for 2026. The common thread is simple: AI will run more of the work behind the scenes, but the brands that win will be the ones that use it to make human experiences better, not disappear them. 

In other words, the future of CX belongs to organizations that deliberately design “humans empowered by AI,” where automation accelerates the work and human judgment safeguards quality, trust, and brand alignment. 

Below are the customer experience trends that matter most for 2026, and what to do about them now while the holiday debrief is still fresh. 

AI Moves from Proof of Concept to the Core of Service Operations 

The experimentation phase is over. McKinsey’s latest global AI survey finds that 88 percent of organizations now use AI in at least one business function, up from 78 percent the year before. In customer operations, it is quickly becoming the backbone of how work is routed, assisted, and resolved. 

Gartner expects conversational AI deployments in contact centers to reduce agent labor costs by about 80 billion dollars by 2026, as automation takes over up to 10 percent of interactions that used to require a person.  

Forrester similarly predicts that one in four brands will see at least a 10 percent increase in successful simple self-service by the end of 2026, driven by more trusted AI. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Treat AI as an operational layer, not a side project. That includes routing, knowledge surfacing, QA, forecasting, and agent assist, not just chatbots. 

• Design “AI first, human always available” journeys. Simple tasks should flow through AI by default, with a smooth path to a human when needed. 

• Plan for change management early. Many organizations will see service quality dip in 2026 if they roll out AI without investing in process redesign and training. 

If your 2025 peak season depended on heroic overtime and last-minute hiring, 2026 is the year to deliberately shift a measurable slice of that load to AI. Start by choosing one or two high-volume intents that were painful this year and reimagining them with automation and assistive tools. 

For more information on our 2025 holiday AI & customer service report, which offers a breakdown of how often shoppers used AI in their journey and how it compared to human support, please click below! 

2025 Holiday AI & Customer Service Report

Self-Service Gets Smarter, But Customers Will Punish Bad Bots 

Many forecasts now assume a world where AI handles the majority of routine customer requests. Some vendors predict that AI-powered agents could manage up to 95 percent of customer engagements by 2026, with human experts handling complex exceptions. 

Reality is more nuanced. Deloitte’s recent contact center survey notes a double-edged pattern: AI adoption jumped significantly between 2023 and 2025, yet CX scores dropped when bots lacked contextual intelligence. Other 2025 customer service research makes the same point.  

AI can be the biggest driver of automated support, but poor implementation quickly leads to frustration. The leaders use AI to support and empower employees, not to hide from customers. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Measure “deflection with delight,” not deflection alone. Focus on containment rates alongside CSAT and recontact rates for AI-led journeys. 

• Give AI full context. Connect it to order history, account status, and prior interactions, rather than deploying it as a stand-alone widget. 

• Design clear escape hatches. Fast handoffs to a person with full context will be the difference between “great self-service” and “holiday horror story” in 2026. 

Look at the moments when customers tried self-service during the 2025 holidays and still had to call. Those are your priority use cases for smarter journeys in 2026. 

Human Agents Become AI-Powered Specialists, Not Generic Generalists 

If 2023 and 2024 were about “AI vs. humans,” 2026 is shaping up to be about “AI plus humans.” CX trends research shows that a strong majority of agents believe an AI copilot would help them do their jobs better, especially by managing repetitive tasks so they can focus on complex issues. 

This aligns with broader CX analyses that say the real differentiator is blending human empathy with the speed and precision of AI, rather than treating them as competing strategies. 

The most effective models position AI as the productivity engine and human talent as the transformation catalyst, using automation to clear the noise so people can lean into nuanced conversations, problem-solving, and loyalty-building moments. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Redesign roles around higher-value work. As AI takes on basic inquiries, agent roles can evolve toward consultative help, troubleshooting, and retention. 

• Invest in assistive tools, not surveillance tools. Real-time guidance, suggested responses, knowledge search, and automatic summarization matter more than dashboards that just watch. 

• Make learning continuous. Use AI-infused simulations and coaching to keep people sharp on new products, compliance rules, and empathy skills, instead of relying on one-time classroom sessions. 

Revisit peak season staffing assumptions. Instead of adding more people to answer, “Where is my order?”, consider how many specialists you need for escalations, fraud, or complex claims, and what assistive tools they will require. 

Hyper-Personalization Becomes Table Stakes, Powered by Unified Data 

Customers now expect brands to remember their context and preferences across channels instead of forcing them to repeat information. CX research from multiple sources highlights hyper-personalization, sentiment analysis, and “emotional IQ at scale” as defining themes for 2025 and beyond. 

At the same time, CX leaders are pouring investment into data integration. Industry research notes that the vast majority of CX leaders are investing in centralizing data across CRM, analytics, and omnichannel sources because this is what enables proactive service and effective personalization. 

Done well, this turns data into a performance and transformation engine, powering accuracy, transparency, automation, and continuous improvement, while giving leaders new insight into where to reduce friction and accelerate their own AI transformation. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Build or refine a 360-degree customer profile that blends interaction history, preferences, and outcomes in one place. 

• Use real-time signals to drive journeys. For example, route a VIP differently during peak season, or proactively offer self-service when someone repeatedly checks an order status page. 

• Treat privacy and consent as design constraints, not afterthoughts. Transparent controls and clear explanations of how data is used will matter more as AI touches more of the journey. 

Analyze 2025 behavior to identify segments that struggled, such as last-minute shoppers, new customers, or high-value subscribers. Design specific journeys and offers for those groups before the 2026 season begins. 

Security, Fraud Prevention, and “Trust by Design” Move to the Front 

AI has not only empowered service teams. It has also armed fraudsters. Reporting across financial services and telecommunications shows a sharp rise in AI-generated voice fraud targeting contact centers, with a growing share of consumers encountering synthetic voice scams. 

At the same time, major brands across insurance, banking, and technology are publicly tying workforce changes and cost reductions to automation in service operations, underscoring executives’ expectations that AI will materially change how customer communication is handled. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Upgrade authentication beyond simple knowledge-based questions and basic voice matching. Multi-layer approaches that combine device, network, behavior, and voice liveness signals are becoming the norm. 

• Build fraud patterns into your routing and agent assist tools so suspicious behavior is flagged in real time, not just after a loss. 

• Be transparent with customers about how you protect them, especially when AI and voicebots are part of the experience. The organizations that pull ahead will treat every AI-enabled interaction as “secure and compliant by design,” baking controls into new capabilities from the start instead of bolting them on later. 

Peak season is always a magnet for fraud. Use your 2025 fraud patterns to stress-test your 2026 AI roadmap and make sure security teams are part of every experience design conversation. 

Proactive and Predictive Service Becomes an Expectation, not a Nice-to-Have 

Analysts are clear that customer service will increasingly focus on delivering value and preventing issues, instead of reacting to them.  

Gartner identifies three trends that will shape the future of customer service by 2028: executive pressure for automation, customers’ increasing use of AI assistants, and a renewed quest for customer value in service.  

Together, these trends are pushing service and support teams to move “upstream” in the journey—using AI to shift from reactive human requests to proactive experience orchestration and value creation, not just ticket resolution. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Use AI and analytics to predict common failure points. Examples include shipment delays, benefit renewals, or service outages, then reach out before customers chase you. 

• Pair proactive alerts with easy, low-friction action paths. For instance, a text that warns of a possible delay should include a direct link to reschedule, not just an apology. 

• Coordinate across marketing, product, and service so customers receive one coherent message instead of multiple conflicting ones. 

Many of the most painful contacts during the holidays are preventable. Inventory issues, shipping delays, and policy confusion can often be anticipated. Treat proactive alerts and self-service options as part of your 2026 holiday campaign plan, not just an operations afterthought. 

CX Measurement Shifts from Metric Obsession to Business Outcomes 

Forrester’s 2026 predictions warn that some CX teams will fall into a “death spiral,” doubling down on survey metrics in an attempt to justify themselves while failing to drive meaningful change. 

The organizations that break out of this pattern are the ones that link their experience investments directly to outcomes such as revenue, retention, cost to serve, and risk reduction. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Move beyond score chasing. CSAT, NPS, and customer effort scores still matter, but they should be leading indicators, not the story. 

• Tie journeys to financial and operational metrics. For example, track how a new AI-driven return flow impacts refund leakage, repeat purchase rate, and contact volume. 

• Include employee experience measures in the CX scorecard. Burnout, attrition, and time to proficiency directly affect service quality and cost. 

When you review this past peak season, look beyond “What was our CSAT in December?” Ask how service performance influenced repeat purchases, subscription renewals, chargebacks, and complaints. Use that view to prioritize 2026 investments. 

Ethical, Human-Centered AI Becomes a Brand Differentiator 

Analysts are already predicting high-profile missteps as companies rush to automate research and insight gathering through AI. Some predict headline-making scandals in 2026 related to AI-led customer research and poorly deployed self-service that erodes brand trust. 

On the flip side, CX leaders emphasize responsible AI, emotional intelligence, and human-in-the-loop approaches as core design principles. 

What This Means for 2026 

• Establish clear guardrails for how AI can and cannot be used in customer interactions, and communicate them internally and externally. 

• Keep humans in the loop for high-stakes decisions, sensitive journeys, and any situation where nuance, empathy, or complex judgment are required. 

• Build diverse cross-functional teams, including legal, compliance, and frontline representatives, into your AI decision-making process. 

Customers are particularly sensitive to fairness, transparency, and empathy during emotionally charged moments such as holiday travel, healthcare, financial stress, or gift returns. Make sure AI supports your brand values instead of quietly undermining them. 

Turning 2025 Lessons Into a 2026 CX Roadmap 

If 2025 was the year AI became unavoidable in customer service, 2026 will be the year it becomes inescapably operational. The brands that stand out will be the ones that: 

• Use AI to remove friction, not to hide from customers. 

• Treat agents as empowered specialists with powerful tools, not as a cost center to be squeezed. 

• Connect data, journeys, and metrics to real business outcomes instead of chasing vanity scores. 

• Build trust, security, and ethics into every AI decision. 

The holiday twist is simple. Your customers already told you what they needed this past peak season through their behavior, complaints, and compliments. The best gift you can give them in 2026 is to listen carefully, then design your customer experience around those signals, with AI and human expertise working together. 

How Liveops Puts These 2026 CX Trends to Work 

For Liveops, these 2026 trends are not a wish list—they are how we already operate. Our model pairs advanced AI and automation with experienced customer service professionals, using real-time insights, automation, and intelligent workflows to reduce friction while keeping human empathy at the center of every interaction. 

We think of it as humans empowered by AI, where automation accelerates work and surfaces insight, and people ensure quality, trust, and tight brand alignment. 

That technology sits on top of a security-first foundation. With a layered security and compliance framework that includes secure BYOD, multi-factor authentication, identity verification, and support for standards like PCI DSS and HITRUST e1, brands can confidently lean into AI, remote delivery, and automation without compromising protection. Every new offering is built to be secure and compliant by design. 

Coverage is orchestrated through precision scheduling, aligning capacity to real demand in 30-minute intervals so peak seasons, promotions, and unexpected spikes feel planned instead of chaotic. This is where flexible global talent and intelligent automation meet, with AI helping to predict and shape demand and distributed human expertise showing up where it is needed most. 

And because none of this works without skilled people, Liveops taps a network of more than 20,000 experienced customer service professionals, many with 15 or more years of experience and roughly 80% holding a college degree or higher. That depth of experience means clients get conversations handled by people who already know how to navigate complex policies, regulated environments, and emotionally charged situations, not just read from a script. 

Layered on top is a data-driven performance rhythm, with analytics, reporting, and continuous improvement loops that give clients visibility they often do not have in-house and help them make better decisions, reduce friction, and accelerate their own AI transformation. 

Put together, this gives companies a practical path into 2026: AI and automation, where they truly improve the experience, secure and compliant operations behind the scenes, right-time coverage for every season (holiday rush included), and a high-caliber global talent network empowered by data and intelligent automation to deliver deeper, more differentiated brand experiences.