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Adobe Summit 2026 made one thing clear: AI has moved beyond assistance and into execution.

This year’s biggest announcements focused on agentic AI, autonomous workflows, and the systems brands need to turn intelligence into action – at scale.

Acxiom was there alongside Omnicom, meeting with leaders across industries, showcasing what’s possible within Adobe, and sharing transformation stories on stage.

Here’s our take on what mattered most and what it means for brands looking to move faster, personalize smarter, and grow with confidence.

What Adobe Summit 2026 Really Announced

AI coworkers are becoming true coworkers

Adobe introduced Adobe CX Enterprise, a new approach to customer experience orchestration built around autonomous AI agents that can help manage end-to-end marketing workflows. The message was clear: AI is moving from a copilot to a coworker.

Brand visibility now includes AI search

With the introduction of Adobe LLM Optimizer, Adobe signaled a new reality for brands: discoverability now extends beyond traditional search and into AI-generated answers, recommendations, and experiences.

Content operations are getting smarter

Adobe also highlighted innovations across content creation and workflow automation, connecting creative production more directly to performance, speed, and personalization outcomes.

Open ecosystems are winning

Expanded partnerships reinforced an important truth: enterprise transformation will come from connected ecosystems, not disconnected tools.

What we saw on the ground

Practical transformation beats hype

One of the most in-demand conversations at Summit was our breakout session with Citi: 

“A Bank’s Blueprint for Agile Marketing and AI-Powered Experiences.” 

The session drew more than 350 attendees, far exceeding typical breakout attendance and reinforcing the strong demand for practical examples of how brands can modernize operations, simplify complexity, and become AI-ready.

Topics included:

For a deeper look at how organizations unlock more value from Adobe investments, watch our on-demand webinar, Breaking the Martech Value Plateau, featuring leaders from Acxiom and Adobe.

Collaboration is moving from concept to priority

We were honored to join industry leaders at Adobe’s Real-Time CDP Collaboration & Partnerships Lunch to discuss how brands are using privacy-safe data collaboration to accelerate smarter growth.

Top priorities included:

The takeaway was clear: brands are building collaboration into their core growth strategy as the value of first-party data increases.

Engagement built on outcomes

We’re grateful to everyone who stopped by our booth to experience our immersive activation, see live demos in action, and meet the team behind Omnicom’s Adobe practice.

Throughout the week, we showed what it means to bring together creativity, data, AI, automation, and real-time precision marketing to drive measurable brand growth at scale. To learn more about Omnicom’s expanded Adobe partnership, read the announcement.

What it means for your brand

Why You’re Hearing More About Acxiom + Adobe

As part of Omnicom, Acxiom helps brands unlock more value from Adobe through data, identity, and operational transformation.

We support organizations with:

Adobe Summit reinforced what we’ve believed all along: a successful future belongs to brands that can connect intelligence to execution.

Let’s Keep the Momentum Going

If Adobe Summit sparked new ideas for your business, let’s talk about how to turn them into action. Explore our Adobe Practice.

The 2026 Gartner Magic Quadrant for customer data platforms (CDPs) and decision intelligence platforms (DIPs) reads like a who’s who of enterprise marketing technology – with Salesforce at the top, Adobe holding Visionary status, Treasure Data (now rebranded as Treasure AI) holding its ground as a Challenger, and newer entrants like Uniphore and SAS reshaping the competitive landscape. CDPs have never been more capable, more integrated, or more aggressively positioned.

And yet, despite all that progress, there’s a structural problem CDPs were never intended to solve — and it’s quietly eroding performance across analytics, measurement, and media for the organizations betting most heavily on them.

Nobody puts that in the sales deck.

The Problem Starts Before the CDP Ever Gets the Data

CDPs are fundamentally constrained by their platform boundaries and whether it is Adobe, Salesforce, SAS, Treasure AI, Uniphore, or others, each platform relies on deterministic, often login-based identifiers and session-level data to build customer profiles.

That works well for known, authenticated users. The problem is that most digital interactions happen before authentication – across anonymous traffic, fragmented devices, and paid media environments where identifiers constantly reset or change. CDPs inherit this fragmentation. They don’t perform continuous identity hygiene; duplicates and unstable identifiers flow downstream into analytics, activation, and measurement. This isn’t a theoretical gap. At enterprise scale, identity must function as a governed system – one that continuously resolves, cleans, and connects data across known and unknown customers, devices, and channels. 

That’s the role of an identity foundation like Acxiom Real ID – an enterprise-owned, privacy-safe identity system operating upstream of activation platforms.

What This Looks Like in Practice

With a connected foundation, paid and social platform IDs synchronize into a brand-owned identity graph. Anonymous and pre-authentication traffic gets resolved – expanding the total addressable audience. Events route consistently across analytics and measurement environments. Suppression and targeting work as intended. And cross-channel attribution becomes something you can actually rely on, rather than argue about.

Without a dedicated identity foundation, the capability gap is real, and it compounds over time. Fragmented identity doesn’t just create measurement headaches – it degrades model quality, limits personalization reach, and makes every downstream decision noisier.

It’s a bit like hiring a world-class chef, then handing her ingredients from five different grocery stores, none of which use the same labeling system. The talent is there. The kitchen is beautiful. But dinner is a mystery.

The Fix Isn’t Replacing Your CDP. It’s Extending It.

A dedicated identity foundation operates alongside your existing platforms – resolving identity upstream, applying always-on hygiene (deduplication, normalization, suppression), and distributing a consistent identity foundation across your entire marketing ecosystem. Rather than each platform maintaining its own version of the customer, identity is resolved once and governed centrally.

One customer. One truth. Revolutionary, we know.

This distinction matters more than it might seem. CDPs are activation and orchestration engines, purpose-built to execute marketing in owned environments. An enterprise identity layer is the foundational connectivity layer – ensuring the data flowing into and out of those platforms is accurate, complete, and interoperable. CDPs collect and act on data. Acxiom ensures that data represents real people consistently, across channels, devices, and platforms.

A Quick Cheat Sheet: Who Does What

Customer Data PlatformsAcxiom Identity
Activation & Orchestration LayerFoundation & Connectivity Layer
Unify first-party data (known users)Manage profiles in the platformPower journey orchestration (email, web, SMS)Enable real-time personalization in owned channelsBuild and activate audience segmentsExecute campaigns across channelsPerform platform-level analytics and reportingResolve identity across known and anonymous usersBuild a durable, population-scale identity graphConnect offline + online + paid media identitiesApply continuous hygiene (deduplication, normalization, suppression)Create a single source of truth for customer identity and countsSynchronize paid and social platform IDsRoute identity-enriched data across ecosystems
Activates marketing to known audiencesRecognizes your customers everywhere

In practice, this means Acxiom Real ID resolves identity once – across offline, digital, and paid environments – and distributes a consistent, privacy-safe identity foundation across CDPs, data clouds, and media platforms.

Maturity Changes What You Need from Identity

For organizations early in their data modernization journey, a CDP’s native identity capabilities are often sufficient. The bigger wins come from consulting, integration, and getting the fundamentals right.

Think of this as the crawl phase — except you’re crawling across a very expensive floor that someone just waxed.

But as organizations mature – as data science teams demand richer inputs, as AI aspirations grow, as composable architectures replace monolithic platforms – the ceiling on CDP-native identity quickly becomes apparent. Gartner’s 2026 report frames this as a market-wide bifurcation: CDPs are splitting between “platformization” (deep integration in a single ecosystem) and “agentification” (autonomous agents acting on unified data). Both paths assume a clean, complete identity foundation. Neither delivers one natively.

The most successful organizations adopt a composable approach: the CDP plays a critical role in execution, while the external identity layer ensures consistency, scale, and accuracy across the broader ecosystem. Platforms like Snowflake and Databricks become central to the data strategy. The identity layer stops being a nice-to-have and starts being the connective tissue holding it all together. At scale, this only works if identity is built with privacy and governance at the core – brand-owned, transparent, and designed to evolve with regulatory and platform change.

And yes, “connective tissue” is doing a lot of heavy lifting in that analogy. But so is your identity layer, so it fits.

The Takeaway

Your CDP was built to do a specific job, and it does it well. CDPs are powerful platforms, and organizations that use them well are seeing excellent results. But digital growth requires identity to travel to where analytics, measurement, and activation happen – not the other way around. Even the best CDPs optimize what a brand already knows. An external identity layer unlocks what the brand has yet to see – bringing together signals across channels, devices, and environments to create a complete and durable view of the customer.

“CDPs help you activate your marketing. Acxiom provides the identity foundation that ensures you understand who you’re marketing to –everywhere.”

The organizations pulling ahead aren’t choosing between their CDP and better identity. They’re building both – a composable foundation where the CDP drives execution, and an external identity layer ensures that execution is based on complete, accurate, and consistent data. 

Acxiom has partnered directly with the leading CDP platforms, including Adobe, Salesforce, SAS, Treasure AI, and Uniphore – so brands don’t have to choose between their existing investment and best-in-class identity. These partnerships are designed to ensure that Acxiom’s data and identity capabilities work in concert with each platform’s core strengths, giving brands a seamless path to better recognition, stronger measurement, and more effective activation – without ripping out what’s already working.

Identity is the foundation every downstream decision rests on – and most organizations don’t know where the cracks are until performance already shows it.

Let’s map yours. Talk to an Acxiom identity expert →

Holiday season represents ecommerce’s highest-stakes moment. Traffic surges. Expectations rise. Small friction points cost revenue.

Every year, brands invest heavily in acquisition. But success isn’t just about how many shoppers arrive – it’s what happens once they get there.

In the 2025 holiday season, that difference was clear. Across a portfolio of Salesforce Commerce Cloud clients supported by Acxiom, revenue growth outpaced benchmark performance – often by nearly 2x – highlighting the impact of a well-optimized ecommerce experience.

 Ecommerce Experience Drives Measurable Results

At its core, B2C ecommerce performance is driven by a simple equation:

Traffic × Conversion Rate × Average Order Value = Revenue

During high-pressure moments like the holiday season and Cyber Week, these inputs become deeply interconnected:

In practice, the ecommerce experience becomes a multiplier, either amplifying performance or limiting it.

From Preparation to Performance

As outlined in our earlier guidance on preparing for the holiday season, success starts well before peak demand – through planning across data, inventory, and customer experience.

The 2025 holiday season showed how those preparations translate into real-world performance under pressure.

Where Brands Typically Struggle

Many organizations enter the holiday season focused on growth, but encounter familiar challenges:

These issues may be manageable during lower-volume periods, but they are magnified during the holidays.

 What High-Performing Brands Do: Quality, Conversion, Data

High-performing brands take a holistic approach, optimizing the full commerce experience.

1. Prioritizing Traffic Quality Over Volume
They focus on intent-driven traffic aligned to conversion.

2. Optimizing Conversion Under Pressure
From UX to checkout flow to site speed, minimizing friction is critical during periods of peak demand. Even small improvements in load time, navigation, and checkout efficiency can have an outsized impact.

3. Ensuring Data Accuracy and Agility
Reliable data enables faster decisions through accurate analytics, visibility into traffic quality, and continuous monitoring.

What 2025 Holiday Season Performance Reveals

Industry-wide data reinforces the stakes.

According to Salesforce’s latest findings, global holiday ecommerce sales reached $1.29 trillion last year, growing 7% year-over-year globally and 4% in the U.S. 

Against that backdrop, Acxiom-supported Salesforce B2C Commerce Cloud clients exceeded benchmarks. for example:

During Q4: 

During the core Holiday period (Nov–Dec): 

And during Cyber Week—the most critical window of the season: 

In multiple cases, performance was approximately 2x stronger than benchmark cohorts.

Interpreting the Results

These outcomes were not driven by a single factor. Rather, they reflect a consistent pattern:

In other words, a more effective end-to-end commerce experience.

 What Drives This Performance: Five Capabilities

Consistent performance during peak retail moments requires alignment across strategy, technology, and execution.

High-performing organizations focus on:

Together, these capabilities enable teams to not just prepare – but perform.

The Takeaway

As ecommerce evolves – driven by mobile-first behavior, AI-driven discovery, and rising customer expectations – the margin for error continues to shrink.

Holiday performance isn’t just about driving demand. It’s about capturing it effectively.

For organizations on Salesforce Commerce Cloud, the question becomes:

Is the focus on implementation – or performance?

Because in the moments that matter most, experience is what drives results.

Understanding where your commerce experience stands today is the first step.

Ready to strengthen your ecommerce performance?

As peak retail moments become more competitive, understanding how your experience performs across traffic quality, conversion, and revenue drivers is critical.

We help brands identify opportunities, optimize performance, and drive measurable results on Salesforce Commerce Cloud.

[Start the Conversation →]  

From landlines to smartphones, from PSTN to VoIP – the last two decades have been characterized by non-stop change for telecommunications companies. Now the industry is reaching another pivotal moment as customers’ expectations, service complexity, and AI collide. How brands respond could define their competitive advantage for years to come.

We wanted to discover exactly how telecoms are adopting customer experiences powered and curated by AI – and how their customers feel about it. So for the telecoms edition of our 2026 CX Trends Report, we surveyed 4,000 people in the U.S. and U.K. as well as 100 telecom leaders. 

The results reveal a sector working hard to keep pace with a shifting CX landscape. An impressive 64% of telecoms say they are already using AI to steer customer journeys. That’s more than in any other industry we surveyed, including banking, insurance, healthcare, and travel and hospitality.

You can explore our full findings in our 2026 CX Trends Report, or keep reading as we share some of the headlines. 

Read the telecoms edition of Acxiom’s 2026 CX Trends Report →

What kind of forces are shaping CX strategy for telecoms? 

The answer varies across U.S. and U.K. telecom brands. In the U.S., where the industry serves an estimated 335 million people, brands cite rising churn and price sensitivity in a commoditized market as the biggest external force shaping CX strategy. In the U.K., brands are feeling the pressure to turn 5G, fiber, or smart home investments into profitable customer experiences. And across both regions, telecoms are conscious of digital-native or OTT players that operate using leaner models. 

As you’d expect, there’s a clear link between these external forces and the big CX priorities for telecoms in the next 2-3 years. For instance, digitally native and OTT industry players often set a high bar for seamless UX and instant support. This drives brands to prioritize efforts such as designing adaptive, AI-led experiences across devices and contexts (a top-3 concern for 44%) and using conversational AI for query resolution (26%). 

It’s also easy to see how rising churn and price sensitivity may be driving telecoms to focus on simplifying journeys across bundled products (41%), improving retention and loyalty (32%), and differentiating CX for premium, business, or high-value customers (31%) – all in an attempt to break parity in commoditized markets. 

AI assistants: Do telecom customers want conversational interfaces? 

Conversational interfaces are a relatively new entry point to digital CX, and they’re not quite the go-to choice for telecommunications companies just yet. Our report shows that 59% still prefer to speak to a person or visit a website for everyday support, rather than use an AI-powered voice or chat assistant. 



It’s important to note that how people prefer to interact differs based on what they’re trying to achieve. For example, 27% would choose to use a voice or chat assistant to check a mobile, broadband, or TV plan, while only 23% would opt to dispute their latest bill this way.

But as chatting with machines becomes a more regular feature of everyday life, telecoms are equipped and ready for more people to switch to conversational interfaces. Nearly two-thirds (64%) are working to develop consistent conversational personas, while 97% expect conversational interfaces to be widely used in the next 2-3 years.

Leading the charge on platform unification 

From mobile, broadband, and TV, to smart home and streaming services, people are feeling fragmentation fatigue, particularly when required to jump between platforms to achieve a single task. 

Our research shows that people want telecoms to step up and make their lives easier; 75% expect brands to make experiences seamless even when dealing with their partners. Telecoms are feeling this pressure, with 73% agreeing that fragmentation is already affecting their CX strategy, but they’re also taking the initiative to unify experiences. 

More than two-thirds (69%) of telecom brands are already using AI to orchestrate customer journeys across touchpoints and partners – again, a larger percentage than in any other industry we surveyed. Take a look at the infographic below to see the other steps telecoms are taking to deliver cross-platform CX. 

Telecoms must start with a strong data foundation 

While telecommunications companies are leading the way in some respects, there’s a long way to go in unlocking the full potential of AI in CX. To successfully use AI for customer support, guiding decisions, and reducing friction across complex journeys, brands need an in-depth understanding of where and how people are ready for AI-led experiences. That means building a strong foundation of data and identity. And this is where Acxiom can help.

Get the full report 

This article only covers a portion of the insights you’ll find in the telecoms edition of our 2026 CX Trends Report. Download the full report to learn more about: 

Download the report →

The travel industry is ripe for AI adoption, with user journeys that span multiple touchpoints, require a high level of personalization, and often have high emotional stakes – making friction feel especially risky. 

Today’s travel brands are already using AI in several ways to reshape CX strategies and  improve efficiency, service levels, and attribution. But how do their customers actually feel about AI curating their experiences? 

The travel and hospitality edition of our 2026 CX Trends Report digs into this question, exploring both brand and consumer perspectives on the AI-powered trends set to define CX in the industry next year. In this article, we unpack a few of the biggest takeaways to give you a flavor of our research – but to benefit from our full findings, be sure to download the report below.

Read the report: AI-curated experience in travel and hospitality →

The headwinds shaping CX strategy for travel and hospitality brands 

It’s a challenging climate for travel brands, as people’s expectations continue to rise and products and services become increasingly complex. (Think more platforms, more partners, and all that associated data). With all that in mind, customer experience has never been more critical to competitive success.

We asked 100 leaders in travel and hospitality about the biggest external factors affecting their CX strategy. Here’s what they identified, in order of impact: 

  1. Growth of digital-first competitors and AI-powered travel platforms
  2. Rising demand for real-time‚ personalized booking and service
  3. Difficulty driving loyalty in a convenience-led‚ choice-rich market
  4. Operational challenges
  5. Customer frustration with disconnected platforms and inconsistent experiences

Travel brands are flexing CX strategies in response to these external forces, and this is reflected in their priorities for the next 2-3 years. For instance, when the market is saturated with almost infinite choices, it’s easy for people to go elsewhere. This makes sensitively handling pivotal moments, like complaints and issues, so crucial. So it’s no wonder 53% of U.S. travel brands say delivering more empathetic support during disruption is their number one CX priority. Meanwhile, both U.S. and U.K. brands are focusing on enhancing loyalty programs and reducing friction across booking and checking in. 

Similarly, with people coming to expect customized products and services as standard, 34% of U.S. and 32% of U.K. travel brands surveyed say they’re already using AI to offer real-time personalization. 

Is effort the enemy of the modern traveler? 

Despite the improvements AI enables, 58% of people say it still takes too much work to get things done with brands – and that frustration is evident in their behavior. Last year, more than 40% of people switched providers, stopped using a brand, or abandoned a transaction due to friction in the experience.

Customer journeys are inevitably high-effort in the travel industry; the moving parts for a single trip can include flights, hotels, transfers, activities, and numerous other bookings. And even when these components can be booked through a single website or provider, each step poses the risk of friction. 

Travel and hospitality brands are all too aware of the stakes, with 83% agreeing that effortless experiences will define the next generation of customer loyalty. But they’re also under no illusions about the risks of going all-in with AI in CX. Of the brands we surveyed, 30% say they fear losing the emotional connection or human touch in the race to deliver frictionless customer experiences, while 29% worry about compromising quality by moving too fast. 

Fragmented journeys put customers on a different path 

Another form of friction negatively impacting the customer journey is fragmentation: 73% of travel and hospitality customers say it’s frustrating to jump between apps or platforms just to achieve one thing. People also place the onus on brands to bridge the gap; three-quarters believe it’s a brand’s responsibility to make cross-platform journeys seamless, even when partners are involved. Despite this pressure, travel and hospitality is the industry least likely to use AI to orchestrate journeys across touchpoints or partners.  

AI could fuel the development of a “universal interface” that unifies platforms and minimizes disruption, creating a continuous customer journey that moves seamlessly from one provider to the next. The question is, will this come at the cost of memorable experiences? A whopping 91% of brands believe AI has the power to unify customer journeys, but only brands can create memorable moments.  

CX from the data foundation and up 

Travel and hospitality brands are moving quickly to embrace AI in CX, but they don’t always have the strong data and identity foundation they need to properly put those solutions to work.  

Whether they’re leveraging AI to enable better customer support, enhance loyalty, or reduce friction – travel brands need a deeper understanding of audience behaviors, expectations, and characteristics, so they can build customer experiences that anticipate (and exceed) their needs. That’s where Acxiom comes in – as a trusted partner for travel brands, we can help build the foundational data infrastructure needed to support AI-powered CX strategies. 

Download the full report for a deeper dive 

In this article, we’ve only scratched the surface of our findings. Download the full report, and you’ll learn:
 

Download the report →

Every healthcare journey is made up of multiple steps. And those steps don’t need to take place in a hospital, clinic, or consultation room to be critical to patient outcomes.

Whether someone’s searching for the right provider, making an appointment, or seeking more information about their medication, the experience can impact everything from their ability to access care to the success of their treatment plan.

This is one reason the rapid evolution of AI is so exciting for healthcare organizations. Yes, the technology is unlocking headline-grabbing advances in fields like drug discovery and medical imaging analysis. But it’s also helping to transform the patient experience in ways that are no less important.

As part of our annual CX Trends Report, we interviewed 100 healthcare leaders in the U.S. and the U.K. to better understand how they’re building AI into their patients’ experiences. We’ll share some of our key findings here, but if you have time to read the full report, it’s free to download and is packed with additional insights.

Read the report: AI-curated experience in healthcare →

How healthcare brands are reinventing the patient experience

In the next 10 years, the customer experience healthcare organizations provide will either be mostly AI-led or hybrid by design. That’s according to 73% of healthcare leaders.

Here are just three ways they’re already laying the groundwork for an AI-assisted future.

Using AI to guide the patient experience

Would you be happy for AI to monitor your health, make recommendations, and even book appointments on your behalf? To support our research with healthcare leaders, we also surveyed 4,000 U.S. and U.K. consumers, and almost half (49%) told us they would be comfortable with AI steering their healthcare experience in this way.

Healthcare leaders believe, in time, such AI-guided experiences will become the norm. The vast majority (78%) say AI will handle most customer decisions within the next decade, turning brands into silent, invisible advisors. More than 80% are planning to use AI to steer every stage of the customer journey, from awareness to ongoing support.

But healthcare leaders are sensitive to the risks involved and cautious of implementing AI before it’s up to the task. They’re likely to see low confidence in AI decisions as a barrier to the technology playing a more active role in shaping the customer experience, more so than business leaders in any other industry we surveyed.

Our study also reveals a disconnect between what healthcare leaders and healthcare consumers believe matters most when AI is used to guide journeys and decisions.

Healthcare brands are focused on providing transparency – making sure people understand how the technology is steering their experiences, and why. This is actually a relatively low priority for consumers. They place much more importance on being able to retain control and easily adjust or override an AI’s choices.

Building empathic AI-powered interactions

Empathic AI – the kind that reads and responds to your emotions – is a divisive issue. Someone younger than 35, or who actively uses AI, is likely to be accepting of the technology interpreting their emotional state. Someone who’s older than 55, or who has little experience with AI, is likely to bristle at the idea.

But when you present people with a clear, practical scenario, a clearer consensus emerges. A strong majority (67%) of all the people we surveyed agree: when they’re stressed, they want digital services to act more like a human, not more like a robot.

Healthcare leaders understand this very well; 78% say brands that automate without empathy won’t survive the decade. What’s more, building more empathic and emotionally aware interactions is the highest CX priority among healthcare leaders for the next two to three years.

But the road to empathic AI isn’t straightforward. Almost all healthcare leaders (94%) say building emotionally intelligent AI into customer interactions presents a challenge for their organization. Customer acceptance is the most commonly cited obstacle, followed by the risk of the technology providing problematic responses or simply failing to perform.

Unifying the platforms that support patient journeys

From reviewing your blood test results in one app, to joining a telehealth call in another, and filing a health insurance claim in a third, modern patient journeys can involve hopping from platform to platform.

Many healthcare leaders are now looking to AI to help bridge the gaps by orchestrating journeys across touchpoints and partners. They’re taking a host of other steps, too – even if they’re being a little more cautious in their efforts than brands in other industries.

In this era of large language models (LLMs) and agentic AI, healthcare leaders also have strong opinions on AI’s potential to offer patients a single, universal interface. Eight of 10 (79%) believe agentic AI is set to streamline customer journeys, for example, but at the cost of customer choice.

From smarter CX to stronger patient outcomes

Our study’s findings underline the link between successful CX transformation and progress toward the broader objectives of modern healthcare organizations, as enshrined in frameworks such as The Quintuple Aim. 

Indeed, the majority of U.K. healthcare leaders say their CX strategy is being driven by the need to deliver better patient outcomes at a lower cost. Almost half (44%) of our U.S.-based respondents say pressure to improve care equity and better serve diverse populations is shaping their CX strategy.

Wherever a healthcare organization’s strategic priorities lie, they’ll need to build their AI implementations on a solid data and identity foundation. As they strive to create guided, personalized, and secure experiences that patients quickly come to trust, they’ll find that the support of an expert data and marketing technology partner is invaluable.

Read the full report

Our full report explores even more ways healthcare leaders are using AI to rethink the customer experience. Download it now to discover:

Download the report →

The rise of AI is shaking up every stage of the customer journey. And insurance companies, like all other commercial enterprises, are feeling the shockwaves.

AI is changing the way many people shop for their perfect policy. It’s also raising their expectations regarding product personalization and customer support.

We wanted to understand how insurers are responding – how they’re rethinking customer experience (CX) in a world that’s being transformed by AI in all its forms, from conversational to generative to agentic. So, we asked them.

We interviewed 100 leaders at U.S. and UK insurance companies, exploring their CX challenges, priorities, and strategies. You can find the full picture in our 2026 CX Trends Report, or read on for a snapshot of our findings.

Read the report: AI-curated experience in insurance →

Insurers are connecting CX across fragmented platforms

How do you deliver a seamless customer experience when your customer journeys are often broken across multiple platforms, partners, and ecosystems?

It’s a huge question for insurers, given the industry’s complex landscape of brokers, price comparison sites, and third-party providers, from retail banks to travel and mobile phone companies. It’s also a question AI is helping solve.

The majority of insurers (63%) say they’re implementing AI to orchestrate people’s journeys across touchpoints or partners, as they work to create a cross-platform customer experience.

Insurers are embracing conversational interfaces

Most insurance brands (61%) are already testing AI-powered assistants in real customer journeys. And it’s easy to understand why – conversational interfaces, whether voice or text-based, could be the key to providing policyholders with quick, highly personalized service and support, 24/7.

What’s more, a significant proportion of people say they  are as happy to interact with a bot as they are to ask their questions to a human. We canvassed the opinions of 4,000 U.S. and U.K. consumers in our study. Nearly one in three (30%) would prefer to use a voice or chat assistant when they have a question about what their policy covers. That’s more than would choose to consult the insurer’s website or app (27%), and the same proportion that would turn to a call center (30%).

But conversational interfaces are creating new risks for insurers, too. As voice and chat searches replace many traditional web-based inquiries, insurers know they need to adapt their strategy. Almost nine of 10 (88%) insurance leaders say brands that don’t adapt risk vanishing from the conversation. Almost half (49%) say they’re already rethinking search, discovery, and advertising for a world without screens.

Insurers are using AI to steer the customer experience

Insurers’ plans for AI-curated CX extend far beyond building bots to field questions. Increasingly, they’re also using the technology to steer people’s actions – in real time, at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

Weaving AI into every key moment, from awareness to retention, is no simple task. Most insurers are running into multiple logistical and strategic challenges, the most common being:

Interestingly, customer comfort with AI calling the CX shots could be less of a cause for concern than many insurance leaders might think.

Yes, a small proportion of people (17%) bridle at the idea of brands using AI to influence their decisions in any way. But many are ready for the technology to offer a helping hand in the right context. The majority (52%), for example, say they’re comfortable with AI suggesting the right insurance policy for their individual requirements.

The primary forces driving CX reinvention

What’s the single greatest force pushing insurance leaders to reshape CX strategy and make the most of AI? That depends on whether they spread jam or jelly on their toast.

More than any other external factor, U.K. insurers are responding to growing competition from insurtechs and direct-to-consumer models. Insurers in the U.S., meanwhile, are most likely to be responding to rising customer expectations around personalized, proactive risk management.

Whatever their primary motivation for rethinking CX, insurers are largely united in their vision of the industry’s future. More than eight of 10 (83%) say insurance CX will be AI-led within 10 years, with humans only stepping in where circumstances or regulations demand.

Minimizing the risks; seizing the opportunities

Insurance companies know they can’t sleep on CX transformation. As people’s search habits change, these companies feel the urgency to make product discovery effortless – more so than brands in any other industry we surveyed.

But they’re also awake to the positive, business-changing potential of AI-curated experiences. They understand how AI can support many of their most critical CX objectives, from providing next-level personalization to simplifying customer journeys and touchpoints.

For many, selecting the right data partner will be a vital step. After all, AI is only as good as the information it’s working with. Before any insurance provider attempts to elevate its policyholder experience to new, AI-curated heights, it should make sure it’s building atop a robust data and identity foundation.

Read the full report

This article only covers a selection of the findings from our study. Read the full report, and you’ll discover:

Download the report →

With every passing day, AI is evolving from a behind-the-scenes enabler to the architect of modern customer experience. Brands are no longer turning to AI solely to boost efficiency but are using it to transform the very fabric of how they communicate with – and care for – their customers, and how they pursue prospects.

We’re entering the age of AI-curated experiences, marking a shift from decision support to decision making. Direct AI-to-AI communications enable algorithms to do the thinking on both sides of the customer experience for the first time, so they can deliver more effective customer journeys as they interpret context, anticipate intent, and orchestrate interactions across every touchpoint. 

Yet our 2026 CX Trends Report reveals progress comes with a paradox. People are open to being guided by AI, but they rank control as a top priority during those interactions, so they can change or reject the AI’s suggestions. Two-thirds (67%) of consumers want digital services to act more human when they’re stressed, but only 27% are comfortable with AI using signals to understand how they’re feeling. These examples illustrate the push and pull of CX transformation playing out in real time, and it’s up to brands to find the right balance.

The sheer speed at which AI is changing the landscape is also remarkable.  50% of brands say AI-curated experiences are already transforming their sector, and 79% say they will in the next 12 months. Here’s a snapshot of each of the five trends we explore in the report and their findings:

  1. Conversational interfaces – AI-powered voice and text interfaces are slowly but surely replacing traditional web and mobile experiences, enabling conversational interactions between consumers and brands. People’s willingness to use voice or chat interfaces varies by age, but 97% of brands expect them to be used widely in the next 2-3 years. So how can brands ensure they strike the right balance between conversational AI and other channels, and use this technology in a way that actually meets their customers’ unique needs?
  2. An instructional world – People’s lives are constantly being guided by AI recommendations: think comparison sites, personalized “watch next” suggestions, and even predictive text. The report reveals people’s comfort level with brands using AI to influence their decisions varies considerably by age and their immediate situation – something brands have to be aware of when they’re using AI in this way.
  3. Effortless access – Hyperconvenience is the new normal, but brands are failing to deliver: 58% of consumers say that, despite AI, it still takes too much effort to engage. The younger the age group, the lower their tolerance for inconvenience and the greater the likelihood they’ll walk away if the experience isn’t friction-free. Yet most brands worry that using AI to deliver effortless experiences risks sacrificing quality or becoming less distinctive.
  4. Platform unification – Whether it’s booking a hotel room, managing finances, or streaming content, 73% of consumers find jumping between multiple platforms for one task frustrating. Could AI act as a “universal interface,” allowing it to navigate fragmented systems and apps with ease? A huge 92% of brands agree that AI can unify journeys, but they also believe only brands can create memorable moments.
  5. Empathetic interactions – Emotionally intelligent AI is on the rise, but for some people, AI that senses and responds to how they’re feeling seems like a step too far. While 38% of them say they don’t want AI reading their emotions, 81% of brands believe those brands that automate without empathy won’t survive the decade.

As AI continues to evolve from enabler to orchestrator, the challenge for brands is knowing where to focus their next CX transformation efforts. The report takes a deep dive into each of these trends, delivering a clear view of how AI is reshaping the CX landscape and data-driven insights into customer sentiment for the shift toward AI-curated experiences.

The message is clear: the key to powerful AI-curated experiences lies in combining the power of artificial and human intelligence. As long as robust data foundations and strong ethical principles underpin their use of AI, brands can then anticipate change, make smarter decisions, and deploy AI in ways that actually align with people’s priorities.

To read our evidence-based findings in full and discover validated approaches to building AI-curated experiences that will resonate with your customers, download the 2026 CX Trends Report.

2025 was a year of accolades for Acxiom’s strategic cloud partnerships. Just before the holidays, Snowflake awarded Acxiom the PREMIER partner badge for AI Data Cloud Products – confirming proven integrations and measurable business impact.

What Earned the Recognition

Acxiom, now part of Omnicom, continues to accelerate AI applications for its industry-leading identity resolution and data enrichment solutions for global and local marketers. Recent deployments include Acxiom’s Real ID First Party Graph and Acxiom Data Enrichment as native apps in the Snowflake Marketplace, enabling faster, more precise decisioning.

A Year of Affirmation

At the Cannes Lions Festival in June, Acxiom and Snowflake announced a strategic initiative to build AI-powered marketing environments that help brands modernize, moving from fragmented data to integrated customer views and real-time personalization, with demonstrable accountability to global privacy requirements.

What Matters Most

We will deliver even more value to our clients in 2026. Now part of Omnicom, Acxiom’s identity resolution capabilities (2.6 billion addressable global audience), combined with Omnicom’s Omni platform, will enable more personalized, cross-channel marketing that delivers measurably improved media performance and outcomes for our clients.

Recognition is nice. Results are what counts. And 2025 delivered both.

From standing in line at a bank branch to tapping an app — the way we manage our finances has transformed dramatically. Today, as organizations across many industries strive to deliver AI-enhanced customer experiences (CX), banks and other financial institutions aren’t just participating; they’re leading the charge.

They’re already using AI to guide customer decisions and orchestrate journeys. They’re crafting effortless experiences while safeguarding trust and personalization. And they’re moving quickly to harness conversational interfaces. The urgency is clear: 94% of banks and financial institutions believe AI-curated experiences will reshape CX faster than most brands are prepared for.

We interviewed 100 banking and financial service leaders based in the U.S. and U.K. for our 2026 CX Trends Report. They shared the significant pressures they face, their priorities for the coming year, and their innovative approaches to five AI-powered CX trends.

Read the report: AI-curated experience in banking →

What’s shaping CX strategy for financial services?

Customer experience has become a critical differentiator for banks and financial services companies. A diversified marketplace — disrupted by digital entrants, big tech players, and embedded finance solutions — has significantly raised customer expectations. Regulators are intensifying their focus on customer journeys and outcomes.  And analysts are even warning that banking CX, globally, is in decline.

When asked about the external forces most profoundly shaping their CX strategy, financial leaders identified:

Interestingly, business leaders in the U.S. and U.K. are responding with distinct priorities.

U.S. banks are more likely to prioritize enhancing personalization across channels and products and integrating with fintechs, super apps, and embedded finance ecosystems. U.K. banks are often focused on simplifying their digital and mobile banking interfaces.

However, financial institutions on both sides of the Atlantic share a common top CX priority: using AI to guide customers through complex financial decisions. This highlights a broad industry consensus on AI’s pivotal role in the future of banking experiences.

In fact, 83% of banking leaders believe CX will be predominantly AI-driven in the next 10 years, with human intervention reserved for complexity or regulatory needs. They aren’t just talking about it; they’re actively building this AI-curated future.

Beyond the hype: Banks are implementing conversational interfaces

Financial services companies are leading other industries in implementing conversational interfaces. A substantial 77% are actively investing in this technology.

Most banks are diligently working on establishing a consistent brand persona for conversational channels and rigorously testing AI-powered assistants within real customer journeys. Nearly half (46%) are already embedding conversational interfaces directly into their customer journeys and technical platforms.

People are increasingly turning to voice and chat tools for product research and evaluation. This trend is so significant that 92% of banks acknowledge the imperative to adapt or risk being left out of the conversation entirely.

However, our research also indicates that banks will need to thoughtfully introduce  conversational interfaces to customers to get them comfortable using them for everyday financial management. Our survey of 4,000 U.S. and U.K. consumers revealed that only 18% would choose a voice or chat assistant over a more established channel for tasks like transferring money between accounts. This underscores the need for a strategic, human-centric approach to AI adoption.

Financial institutions are stepping up AI guidance

The potential for AI to guide and support the banking customer experience is immense — from helping customers identify the best savings accounts to offering personal finance tips or flagging suspicious transactions.

Some financial services companies are already using AI to intelligently steer customer actions at every stage of the journey, and more than 90% say they plan to do so. This will be a welcome development for many customers, directly addressing the demand for 24/7 personalized service. The vast majority of people (83%) are open to AI influencing their decisions, though their comfort levels vary:

As banks build these trusted, AI-guided experiences, they are equally focused on delivering optimal outcomes and ensuring customers understand AI’s role. Consumers, above all, want the assurance that they can override AI’s choices when they want to, highlighting the importance of transparency and control in human-AI collaboration.

The delicate balance: speed and trust in CX

Almost every financial services company (90% of our sample) believes the next generation of customer loyalty will be defined by effortless experiences.

Yet, the path to effortless CX is fraught with challenges, from outdated systems and slow processes to fragmented data. The most prevalent obstacle, cited by 48% of banks, is the critical need to balance speed with the imperative to build trusted, personalized experiences.

With 82% of banking leaders believing the trend toward AI-curated, effortless CX will transform their industry in the next 12 months, the pressure is on. Financial institutions must square this circle, delivering banking experiences that are simultaneously tailored, reassuring, fast, and friction-free. This is where a robust, connected data foundation becomes indispensable.

Bringing every customer along for the ride

In the race toward AI-curated customer experiences, financial services companies are largely outpacing their peers in other industries. As they push to maximize technology and use AI to support, guide, and simplify experiences, the smartest banks will meticulously analyze how customer acceptance varies across demographics and different CX scenarios. As we’ve seen, consumer comfort with AI remains lower when their money is actively in motion.

To gain this deep understanding of customer needs, and to provide AI with the precise information it requires to curate exceptional, human-centric experiences, banks must start with a solid foundation of connected data and identity. This is precisely where Acxiom excels. We put data to work, solving these complex challenges for the world’s leading financial brands, ensuring they realize the full power and potential of their data and technology investments.

Read the full report

This article covers only a selection of the findings from our study. Read the full report and you’ll discover:

Download the report →