The State of Customer Experience in an AI-Driven World
Adobe research reveals how AI is reshaping customer experience across discovery, content, personalization, and agentic automation. What it means for C-suite and B2C leaders.
A Reset Is Underway
Customer experience is being reset by AI. A recent Adobe and Incisiv study surveyed 3,467 senior executives across nine regions and eight industries, and the message is clear: the brands that win will combine trustworthy AI discovery content, governed content production, integrated data foundations, and modern team structures to deliver consistent customer journeys.
What does that mean in practice? Four connected shifts are reshaping how consumers find brands, how teams create content, how companies personalize experiences, and how AI will operate at scale.
Four Shifts Reshaping Customer Experience
Discovery moves from search boxes to AI conversations
AI assistants are becoming a primary entry point for brand and product discovery. Visibility now depends on trust signals, clear authorship, and answer-ready content.
Content operations must scale without losing quality
AI can increase content volume and speed, but governance determines whether that scale is usable and safe. Organizations that operationalize modular content and review guardrails see stronger outcomes.
Personalization is limited by operating model, not ambition
Most companies want journey-centric personalization, but fragmented data, siloed teams, and low confidence in orchestration platforms block execution. Tech alone is not enough without talent alignment.
Agentic AI is the next operational shift
Companies are planning for agentic AI adoption, but speed must pair with governance and human oversight. Governance is the enabler for safe scaling, not a blocker.
AI Assistants Are the New Front Door
Buyers today engage in about seven meaningful interactions before purchasing, and those interactions span many channels and devices. As complexity rises, AI assistants are becoming the new discovery interface.
When consumers ask AI assistants for recommendations and comparisons instead of typing into search boxes, your brand's visibility depends on content that is both human-readable and easily accessible to AI systems. Trust becomes discoverability infrastructure: consistent branding, credible authorship, and accurate, question-focused content improve the odds of being surfaced.
In the study, 91% of organizations are already considering the impact of AI search on discovery, and 67% are adjusting their strategies for this shift. At the same time, peer influence is strengthening. Consumers report 72% more review and testimonial consumption and 69% more influencer content consumption over two years. The requirement is dual: optimize for AI retrieval and amplify authentic third-party trust signals.
What happens when your luxury jewelry brand does not appear when someone asks for a recommendation? A competitor captures the sale. What happens when a jewelry brand's specifications or availability are wrong in AI answers? Customers lose trust and leave without purchasing. Winning brands treat AI discoverability as a core channel, not a side experiment.
Today's buyers engage across many channels before purchasing.
Content Economics and Governance
AI changes the economics of content creation. Nearly 90% of organizations are adopting, exploring, or using AI for content creation. Among deploying brands, reported benefits include 31% lower cost per asset, 49% higher content throughput, and 36% faster time to market. Conversion lift and quality control costs also move.
Yet efficiency gains bring review burdens. In the same study, 93% report challenges integrating AI content efforts into existing systems, and 89% report factual inaccuracies or made-up content. Top priorities to reduce review burden include automated fact-checking, rights and compliance scanning, and pre-approved templates for repeatable use cases.
Governance is not a bottleneck. When guardrails are built into workflows, confidence and trust increase. Organizations that invest in modular content systems, reusable components, and embedded approval standards keep quality intact at higher volumes.
The Personalization Bottleneck Is Your Operating Model
Leaders agree that customer journeys should drive experience design. Execution, however, is constrained by legacy structures. Marketing teams are under pressure: 97% say they are asked to become more efficient, and 93% say marketing is expected to contribute directly to sales and pipeline.
On data, only 4% report fully integrated and accessible data; 49% report partial integration. Fragmentation limits real-time customer profiles and weakens personalization and journey orchestration. Confidence in platforms is low: 28% in measurement, 21% in personalization and recommendation engines, and 15% in journey orchestration.
When technology upgrades are not matched with organizational redesign, cross-functional collaboration, and modern skillsets, transformation stalls. Personalization becomes an operating model problem, not a campaign problem.
Agentic AI: Plan for Governance Before Scale
Agentic AI moves beyond content generation into automated workflow execution, task routing, and contextual decision support. AI shifts from assistant to operational teammate. In the study, 30% of organizations plan to adopt agentic capabilities by 2027.
The opportunity is clear: faster operations, contextual insights, and more human focus on higher-value work. The risk is equally clear: without oversight, agentic systems can amplify errors and governance gaps. Organizations with clear governance frameworks, accountability, and ethical guidelines will scale agentic AI faster and more safely than peers.
Governance is positioned as the enabler for safe scaling. Companies that pilot agentic AI in high-value, low-risk workflows first, prove ROI, then scale under explicit governance will be rewarded.
Strategic Implications for Leadership
Five strategic implications from the research:
Treat AI discoverability as a core channel
Build answer-oriented, trustworthy, source-worthy content. When customers ask AI assistants for recommendations, your brand should appear with accurate product details, availability, and policies.
Re-architect content operations around modularity and controls
Scale creation speed while embedding fact checks, rights checks, and templates. Governance enables speed, not the opposite.
Prioritize data integration and orchestration capability
Journey-level personalization requires connected, usable data and tooling confidence. Fix the data foundation before adding more channels.
Redesign teams alongside technology
Remove functional silos, align incentives to customer outcomes, and invest in modern skills. Tech alone will not fix operating model gaps.
Pilot agentic AI in high-value, low-risk workflows first
Prove ROI with pilots, then scale under explicit governance. Organizations that lead with controls will scale agentic AI safely.
Quick Audit for C-Suite Leaders
Your roadmap to AI-first commerce
AI discovery readiness
Does your content answer the questions AI assistants are asked? Is authorship clear and trustworthy? Are product details and policies accurate and up to date?
Content governance
Do you have reusable components and approval workflows? Are fact-checking and rights scanning built into your content pipeline?
Data and orchestration
How integrated is your customer data? Do your teams trust measurement, personalization, and journey orchestration platforms?
Operating model
Are marketing, sales, and support aligned around customer journeys? Are incentives tied to customer outcomes, not only channel metrics?
Agentic AI readiness
Do you have governance frameworks and pilot plans? Are you starting with high-value, low-risk workflows before scaling?
For the full report and methodology, see The State of Customer Experience in an AI-Driven World (Adobe, B2C edition).
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