The Year of Trust? Customer Experience in 2026 – Contact Centre leaders predict the future of CX in the New Year
It’s a cliche to say that customer expectations are evolving at breakneck speed, but that doesn’t mean it’s not true. In a tough economic climate, customer loyalty is hard won and easily lost, and new technological advancements mean that they expect the best – frictionless and fast service.
At the same time, with AI now firmly emdedded into customer experience, success for many businesses will depend on how well they are able to balance making the most of AI whilst remaining responsible and empathetic. To understand exactly how these competing pressures will impact the industry, we spoke to CX and technology leaders about their predictions for 2026.
Moving beyond reactivity
One of the biggest shifts we’re likely to see in the next year is a move away from simple issue resolution to a focus on anticipating customer needs and removing friction before it can impact a customer.
Mark Wilson, Technology & Innovation Director at Node4, predicts a fundamental shift in how organisations design and deliver customer experience.
“Customer experience will undergo a major shift in 2026, moving from reactive service to truly predictive engagement,” he argues. “Expectations are rising fast: customers want their needs understood, their problems solved before they appear and a smooth, personalised journey using their preferred channels.
“This is where AI-augmented, integrated CRM and CCaaS platforms become transformative,” Wilson adds. “These systems provide agents with instant access to the full context behind every interaction, enabling organisations to anticipate needs with confidence. Without that integrated foundation, the customer experience collapses, forcing customers to repeat themselves, wait for resolutions and navigate disconnected channels. But with it, continuity can be delivered across channels, making every interaction effortless and showing customers competence and care.”
This shift towards anticipation will extend beyond customer service interactions, with customer education also becoming increasingly vital as a driver of growth, rather than a reactive support function.
Frances Kleven, Senior Director of Core Customer Success at LearnUpon, explains that:
“Instead of responding to support tickets or declining adoption, education programs will leverage product usage, role context, and behavioural signals to predict what a customer needs next. Automated nudges, tailored micro-lessons, and intelligently sequenced paths will drive adoption before issues arise. This ultimately creates and retains confident, high-performing users who grow.”
Governance and trust
With the rise of AI-driven decision making, governance, transparency and accountability will become more important than ever in 2026. Russell Attwood, CEO and founder of Route 101, believes that this is going to be vital for businesses.
“As we move into 2026, the conversation around AI in the contact centre will mature dramatically,” he explains. “We’re likely to see a shift in focus from just deploying AI, to ensuring effective and responsible governance alongside AI use. Trust and transparency are emerging as the new currency in customer experience – as AI becomes more embedded, customers want to see clarity on how decisions are being made, how their data is used and how businesses are held to account. This makes data governance, privacy compliance, and ethical AI deployment not just regulatory requirements, but key brand differentiators.
“In this environment, organisations are increasingly recognising that building AI in-house without specialist support can expose them to compliance and reputational risks,” Attwood notes. “The smartest organisations are therefore responding by establishing internal governance frameworks and partnering with trusted advisors who can help them navigate the complexity of AI integration.”
Humans are not yet obsolete
In this environment where trust is key, industry leaders are clear that AI will not replace humans in 2026. Instead, the focus will be on how AI can offer support to human employees, enabling them to deliver enhanced service and deal with more complex problems
Joel Martins, Chief Technology Officer at Calabrio, explains that: “While artificial intelligence (AI) continues to predict intent, interpret emotion and automate routine tasks, its true advantage stretches beyond the implementation of these algorithms. We can expect to see organisations turn this intelligence into action, combining machine precision with human judgment to create experiences that are faster, smarter and more empathetic.”
He adds: “The most effective companies use AI to augment rather than replace. Intelligent systems give agents real-time insight into tone, timing and sentiment, helping them adjust to conversations in real-time. Automation keeps interactions consistent, while people keep them human.”
“In 2026, I expect to see a renewed emphasis on the human element in business,” agrees Route 101’s Attwood. “The prediction that AI would replace the contact centre agent hasn’t come to pass, and it won’t in 2026 either. Instead, we’ll see the most successful organisations learn to effectively use AI to augment their people, not replace them. If done right, AI can inform decision-making, automate routine tasks and help personalise customer journeys, taking some of the burden off agents. This enables them to focus on cases needing empathy and complex problem-solving skills – something AI cannot easily offer.”
Looking ahead to how this balance between AI and humans will be delivered at an operational level, Martins predicts a move towards hybrid, intelligence-driven service models: “In 2026, the contact centre won’t be defined by human versus virtual agents. Instead, it will be powered by omni-agents who incorporate context, goals and metrics to amplify human-driven interactions. Advances in context-aware AI will help agents deliver empathetic, effective customer service thanks to automated insights on sentiment, intent and policy.”
Trust as the key
As we move into the new year, it’s clear that customer experience will be shaped less by how advanced AI becomes and more by how responsibly it is applied. Predictive engagement and automation will be expected, but trust and human judgment will determine whether these capabilities drive increased customer loyalty and satisfaction. Ultimately, the key to success will be using technology to remove friction without removing empathy – with customer trust mattering most in the end.
