AI Can Transform Your CX — If You Stop Using It as a Shortcut.
PLUS: The service-desk AI that gives leaders faster answers, fewer escalations, and cleaner operations.
📅 November 24, 2025 | ⏱️ 4-min read
Good Morning!
If you haven’t noticed yet, AI is showing up in every part of the customer journey — wait times, routing, content, troubleshooting, resolution, renewal. The differentiator is no longer access to AI, but leadership discipline: data, workflow design, governance, and measurement.
Here’s what matters today.
🧠 AI Customer Experience Is Growing Fast — But Customers Aren’t Loving It
A global survey covered by Forbes shows organisations increasing AI deployments across customer touchpoints — yet customers report growing dissatisfaction with AI-driven support.
AI is often added on top of broken journeys, not designed into them. Customers feel “managed,” not helped. Fixing this requires workflow redesign, smarter escalation logic, and metrics that measure AI outcomes with the same seriousness as human channels.
💡 Alibaba launches AI-chatbot service in renewed consumer push
Alibaba integrated a new AI chat assistant into its Quark app (text + voice) as part of its push into the consumer market rather than enterprise only.
This shows AI moving into core consumer touch-points (search, voice, conversational). For CX leaders: how do you design journeys when the “assistant” isn’t your brand but a third-party platform? Do you lose control of context, brand voice or data?
🤖 AI-Native Consulting Boutiques Are Winning CX Transformation Projects
Smaller AI specialist consultancies are taking business from traditional firms by offering faster, more technically grounded AI execution.
CX teams need working AI systems, not theoretical frameworks. Boutiques are appealing because they deliver prototypes quickly, integrate AI directly into service workflows, and reduce the delay between strategy and real customer impact. For CX leaders, this means choosing partners who can ship — not just talk.
📱 AI “Bubble” Conversations Return — And CX Budgets Will Come Under Pressure
WVIA/NPR highlights growing concerns that AI spending is running ahead of tangible outcomes, raising fears of a potential bubble.
When the market gets cautious, CX technology spend is often first to be scrutinised. This creates both a threat and an advantage:
weak or unfocused AI CX projects will be cut
strong, outcome-driven AI will scale
CX leaders who measure impact — deflection rates, satisfaction shifts, resolution times, churn reduction — will secure budget while others stall.
🛠️ Tool of the Day: SolarWinds Service Desk — New GenAI Release
SolarWinds released a new GenAI update that automates incident correlation, identifies problem clusters, links related tickets, and suggests resolutions based on historical data.
The service desk is often the silent engine behind great customer experiences. Smarter incident grouping and faster root-cause identification reduce downtime, lower friction, and improve communication with customers. For CX operations teams, this unlocks faster recovery, fewer repeat issues, and more predictable service quality.
📊 DCX AI Data Stat
40% of companies say AI has led to some job cuts
about 50% say AI is mostly changing roles
46% of senior leaders now use AI daily (up sharply year over year)
CX organisations are feeling these shifts acutely. Leaders are adopting AI faster than frontline teams, creating anxiety and adoption gaps. High-performing CX teams reframe AI as support: better knowledge access, better routing, richer customer context, and more time for complex issues. This is where AI improves experience instead of eroding morale.
⚡ Your 1-Minute Action Plan (CX Edition)
Choose one critical customer journey today — onboarding, support, billing, delivery, renewal — and ask:
Where is AI currently involved?
What single CX metric is it supposed to improve?
Is there measurable movement?
If not, does the workflow need redesign, retraining, or replacement?
Make one decision and communicate it clearly. CX momentum comes from clarity, not scale.
🔎 See you tomorrow!
AI is already inside your customer journeys. The difference-maker is not the tech — it’s the leaders who design the workflows, govern the outputs, fix the data, and hold AI to the same standards as human service.
Consistency, clarity, and measurement will decide the winners.
👥 Share This Issue
If this issue sharpened your thinking about AI in CX, share it with a colleague in customer service, digital operations, or transformation. Alignment builds advantage.
📬 Feedback & Ideas
What’s the biggest AI friction point inside your CX organisation right now? Reply in one sentence — I’ll pull real-world examples into future issues.