Customer experience trends for 2025: Insights from CX solution providers

As customer expectations rise and technology evolves, brands must adapt to meet new challenges and opportunities in the CX landscape. If growing trends are any indication, 2025 promises to be a transformative year defined by rapid advancements in artificial intelligence (AI), the growing sophistication of cybersecurity, the convergence of physical and digital shopping experiences and evolving consumer expectations.

To better understand how these trends will shape CX in the year ahead, we gathered insights from leading solution providers and their perspectives offer valuable guidance for businesses aiming to stay ahead of the curve.

AI insights: revolutionizing customer interactions

AI for contact centers: AI has become indispensable in contact centers, revolutionizing the way businesses manage customer interactions in many different ways.

According to Zendesk’s 2025 CX Trends Report, AI copilots are reshaping workflows by managing routine tasks and providing agents with critical insights. These tools handle repetitive queries, freeing agents to focus on complex issues and enabling businesses to provide faster, more efficient service. In the Asia-Pacific region, 76 percent of CX leaders predict that 80 percent of customer interactions will be resolved without human intervention in the coming years, setting the stage for more autonomous service models.

Peter Graf, SVP of strategy at Genesys, highlights how advancements in generative AI are pushing this transformation forward: “The latest innovations in AI will make today’s chatbots seem clunky and cumbersome. Customers will quickly shift towards modern virtual agents that are powered by generative AI, instead.”

He adds: “We believe that in the not-too-distant future, these virtual agents will be able to understand and appropriately react to human emotions, delivering automated, empathetic experiences 24x7 as they’ll cover an increasingly complex set of requests. Over time these empathetic virtual agents will further evolve into personal concierges that proactively support consumers even in the most complex situations.” 

Voice bots are also becoming critical tools for delivering superior customer experiences, as Magnus Geverts, VP of product marketing at Calabrio, explains. “2025 will be a breakthrough year for the broader adoption of voice bots powered by AI-based analytics within the contact center industry,” he predicts.

Geverts notes that one of the biggest challenges in managing voice bots has been the overwhelming volume of interaction data they generate, which is often too complex and time-consuming for human teams to interpret.

“However, as AI becomes more integrated into contact center tooling, voice bot management will become more efficient and effective in extracting actionable insights from this data,” he insists.

Agentic AI: This technology, where AI systems autonomously plan and act to achieve goals, is poised to redefine customer experience strategies in 2025. Gartner identifies agentic AI as a key trend, predicting that by 2028, 33 percent of enterprise software applications will include this capability, automating 15 percent of day-to-day work decisions. This represents a shift from reactive AI to proactive systems that dynamically adapt to complex environments.

Freshworks is already invested in this space with its Freddy AI Agent. Dennis Woodside, CEO of Freshworks, highlights its transformative potential. “Freddy AI Agent is a game-changer for organizations looking to accelerate customer service and employee service, fast,” he says. “Most other software requires multiple weeks and implementation fees to deploy an AI agent, but we’ve designed Freddy to be deployed without code or consultants in minutes.”

Companies including Bchex, Porsche eBike, Hobbycraft and Live Oak Bank have already implemented Freddy AI Agent through integration with Freshdesk and Freshservice.

Large language models (LLMs): These are reshaping how businesses process and respond to customer queries. Zendesk’s report highlights their growing influence, with assistant-driven experiences becoming essential in handling tasks such as order tracking, personalized recommendations and conversational problem-solving.

However, LLMs come with limitations. Craig Martell, CTO at Cohesity, offers a measured perspective.

“The emergence of LLM-based AI technology has fundamentally changed the way we interact with our data and each other,” he concedes, but adds: “That said, 2025 will undoubtedly be a year of tempered optimism in the AI space.”

Martell believes that we’re beginning to see the “cracks in the ‘magic’ promised by LLMs. “They are really good at some tasks and seem to ‘dazzle’,” he says.  “However, these models cannot think, reason, or adapt to evolving threats in the ways many anticipated and hallucinate at higher rates than users may expect.” According to Martell, this gap could very well lead to an “AI winter”, where overblown expectations cool investor and developer enthusiasm.

Brands that focus on solving particular use cases with LLMs, rather than attempting one-size-fits-all solutions, are more likely to achieve meaningful results, he says.

Cyber attacks: A growing threat

As digital adoption accelerates, cybersecurity threats are evolving in complexity. Gartner highlights the importance of addressing disinformation security, which involves detecting deepfakes, monitoring harmful narratives and safeguarding brand reputations.

At the same time, quantum computing is expected to disrupt existing encryption methods, requiring businesses to adopt post-quantum cryptography to protect sensitive data.

Brian Spanswick, CIO and CISO at Cohesity, emphasizes the urgency of these challenges.: “This last year has given a clearer understanding of the security threat created by AI technology,” he says. “The attack techniques most leveraging AI include brute force and social engineering attacks. In addition to an increased effectiveness of breaching digital assets these AI enabled techniques have greatly reduced the time to breach.

“Time to both respond to and to contain a cyber event is critical to minimize the impact of an attack,” he adds.

Spanswick also warns of the quantum computing era, which is likely to surpass AI as the top cybersecurity concern. “In 2025 organizations need to at least develop a plan to migrate to encryption that isn't vulnerable to quantum computing attacks,” he insists.

Phygital retail: The click & collect revolution

The blending of physical and digital sales, often called “phygital” retail, is transforming how consumers shop. Startle predicts that click & collect services will account for nearly 20 percent of e-commerce spending by 2027, highlighting the growing demand for hybrid shopping experiences that combine the convenience of online browsing with the immediacy of in-store pickups.

Adam Castleton, CEO of Startle, elaborates on the benefits. “This ‘omnichannel’ retail style is a win-win for both businesses and shoppers,” he explains. “It gives everyone the freedom to decide when, where and how they want to shop. Plus, it opens up a world of new opportunities for retailers, blending the convenience of digital with the personal touch of physical stores.”

For retailers, click & collect also offers operational advantages, such as reduced cart abandonment, exposure to in-store promotions and opportunities for cross-selling.

However, it also comes with challenges, as Castleton explains: “Stores must integrate their e-commerce and in-store inventory systems to ensure that online purchases can be fulfilled accurately and quickly. This requires investment in technology and staff training. Additionally, stores need dedicated space and resources to manage online orders, which can strain existing operations.”

Spatial computing, identified by Gartner as a key trend, is further enhancing phygital experiences and meeting these challenges by enabling real-time contextual information. This technology allows retailers to optimize inventory management and personalize in-store experiences, helping to create a seamless blend of digital and physical worlds.

Consumer outlook: Trust and fulfillment

Trust is emerging as a critical factor in customer relationships. Twilio highlights the growing skepticism among consumers, predicting a “trust crisis” in 2025.

Sam Richardson, executive engagement director for EMEA and APJ at Twilio, emphasizes: “We now live in an age where consumers are constantly – and rightfully – questioning the authenticity of every interaction or piece of content they encounter. This leads me to believe that trust levels will reach an all-time low in 2025, impacting how we view and engage with brands.”

According to Richardson, in 2025, brands must focus on “treating their customers with respect and understanding, recognizing them as human beings”.

He adds: “As consumers become increasingly cynical and less trusting, brands need to show respect by putting themselves in their customers’ shoes.”

Richardson believes it’s time to go back to basics: keeping promises, following through on commitments and creating experiences that feel reliable and supportive. “In other words, we need to foster an ‘ecosystem of promises’ between brands and customers because as soon as a promise is broken, the entire relationship starts to fall apart,” he insists.

Qualtrics’ 2025 Consumer Trends Report provides additional evidence of a shift in trust. The study highlights that 68 percent of consumers now rank trust as the most important factor in determining their loyalty to a brand, surpassing even price and convenience.

Another key insight is the rising importance of shared values, with 55 percent of respondents stating they are more likely to support brands that align with their ethical or social priorities. This reinforces the need for brands to not only deliver on promises but also demonstrate authenticity in their broader business practices.

John Seeds, chief marketing officer at TTEC Digital, builds on this by highlighting the need for end-to-end experience fulfillment. He argues that CX strategies often fail when they stop at customer-facing interactions, leaving back-office operations disconnected from the holistic experience.

Seeds explains: “2025 will be the year that smart brands – truly customer-focused brands – zero in on end-to-end experience fulfillment as their North Star.”

He adds: “Customers view our brands holistically. They don’t differentiate between separate departments within the brand. And that’s why we can’t deliver separate, disjointed experiences.”

Seeds is optimistic that technology can bridge these gaps, thanks to advancements in data integration and automation. “As the lines between contact center, CRM and AI technologies blur, it’s going to be easier than ever for data to flow throughout the front, middle and back offices and for departments to become less siloed. Fulfilling a truly end-to-end experience will finally become an achievable reality.”

The way ahead

The CX landscape in 2025 will be shaped by the interplay of cutting-edge technologies, heightened security demands, phygital innovations and shifting consumer expectations. To thrive in this evolving environment, brands must adopt innovative technologies, build trust through transparency and deliver personalized, seamless experiences. By doing so, they will position themselves for success in the new era of customer experience – in 2025 and beyond.

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