2025 will be the year hype becomes reality when it comes to improving customer and employee experiences with AI, and early leaders will have a significant advantage over the competition.
Over the last 12 months, bad customer and employee experiences became more costly. Around the world, businesses risk nearly $4 trillion because of bad customer experience, according to Qualtrics research. Meanwhile, poorly managed workplace change has created productivity pressure, lowering employee engagement, well-being, and overall experience at work. To add to the complexity, traditional ways of working and engaging with brands are being rewritten.
Businesses recognise they need to urgently rethink how they engage their customers and employees to unlock the significant impact of great experiences while mitigating the impact of a bad one, and have increasingly looked to AI as a solution to this challenge. Next year we will see brands taking this path rewarded for their efforts.
More businesses will use AI in their customer and employee experience programs, with the impact profound and instant — from changing the way they do surveys through to how they tackle burnout, manage security, and demonstrate impact.
To help organisations prioritise their focuses and investments next year, Qualtrics’ team of experience management experts outline what to expect in 2025.
Transparent use of AI central to CX success
“2025 is the year AI proves its value as a tool to strengthen the fundamentals of customer experience. A fundamental part of its success will be cultivating consumer trust in the technology. To earn customers’ trust and increase comfort levels toward AI companies must be transparent – making it clear when AI is or is not used – and show the value it can provide to them directly,” Qualtrics customer loyalty expert, Isabelle Zdatny said.
CX programs show their business value as boards prioritise outcomes over metrics
“The focus in CX will shift from merely measuring basic satisfaction metrics to adopting an outcomes-driven approach that enhances coaching and efficiency for both human and automated agents. For location-based businesses, CX will transform into a fundamental element of corporate culture, empowering every employee to make customer-centric decisions rather than serving merely as a reporting tool for executives,” Qualtrics XM for customer experience chief product officer, Manisha Powar said.
Customers and employees give brands more feedback to improve their experience
“While consumers might be sharing less direct feedback with brands, the volume of feedback being shared through indirect channels, such as social media comments, online reviews, and in the call centre, is increasing exponentially. Indirect feedback is up more than 60% compared to 2023, which itself was a period that saw a 32% year-over-year increase. The rapid increase of indirect feedback provides organisations with a significant opportunity to better understand the needs of their customers and employees — but only those with capabilities to capture it will capitalise,” Qualtrics president of product, UX and engineering, Brad Anderson said.
The feedback survey gets its biggest update in a generation
“The way businesses collect and analyse feedback from customers and employees will change dramatically, as brands use AI to personalise feedback questions in real-time. The questions being asked will immediately adapt based on the answers provided, helping uncover deeper and more nuanced insights that drive impactful and actionable outcomes,” Anderson added.
Customers and employees come to expect AI-powered experiences
“Consumer and employee expectations will shift towards AI-driven experiences as the technology’s impact is felt in their spheres of work and life. There’s an early mover advantage for organisations using AI, giving them a head start on the competition and quick results,” Qualtrics president of AI strategy, Gurdeep Pall said.
AI rewrites the playbook on great customer and employee experience
“2025 is the year AI hype increasingly becomes reality across a multitude of use cases. Within customer service, AI’s greatest impact will be on the teams responsible for delivering great experiences. New capabilities make it easier for frontline employees to rapidly, independently, and confidently identify what people want and need, personalise their engagements, and seamlessly take the next best actions in the moments and channels that matter most,” Pall added.
Businesses improve market and competitive intelligence with new AI tools
“Research teams will have access to instant insights, which can be immediately benchmarked, delivered by entirely new data marketplaces and synthetic data, meaning the need to wait weeks or months for feedback is over. This includes insights from public channels — such as social media, news, and search — searchable libraries of their own historical studies, and instant insights with synthetic data,” Pall concluded.
The adoption of synthetic data in market research will be faster than anticipated
“The majority of market research conducted next year will leverage synthetic responses – at a faster rate than currently predicted given the influx of new providers entering the market,” Qualtrics executive director of Edge, Ali Henriques said.