Meta’s Manus Deal Is a Clue: AI Is About to “Do Stuff,” Not Just Talk
Plus: Holiday data shows why voice still wins when customers need real resolution
📅 December 30, 2025 | ⏱️ 4-min read
Good Morning!
If you only remember one thing today: The real CX risk isn’t an AI giving the wrong answer — it’s an AI taking the wrong action.
When customers ask a bot a question, the worst case is confusion. When customers let an assistant change something (a booking, an order, a subscription), the worst case is damage. That’s why “agents” are a bigger deal than chat. Not because they’re smarter — because they’re allowed to move.
🧠 THE DEEP DIVE: Meta Buys Manus — Betting Big on “Do-The-Work” AI Agents
The Big Picture: Meta announced it will acquire AI startup Manus and fold its agent capabilities into Meta AI across Meta’s platforms.
What’s happening:
Manus is built to handle multi-step tasks with minimal prompting — not just Q&A.
Meta plans to integrate these capabilities into Meta AI where people already spend time (WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook).
Meta also says it will keep operating and selling Manus’ services, hinting this won’t stay “just a consumer feature.”
Why it matters:
This isn’t about whether a bot sounds natural. It’s about where customers will expect work to get done. If someone can resolve an issue inside a message thread, your website and app stop being the default “place” for service.
And here’s the part CX leaders will feel first: when an agent takes action, customers won’t separate the tech stack from the brand. If the outcome is wrong, it’s your problem — even if the assistant is living in someone else’s platform.
The takeaway:
Don’t start with “Where can we automate?” Start with: “Where would one wrong action hurt the customer most?” Pick a few high-impact actions (refunds, cancellations, address changes, plan changes) and build the experience around preventing regret: simple confirmations, clear limits, and an easy undo path.
Source: Reuters
📊 CX BY THE NUMBERS: AI Absorbed the Surge — Voice Stayed the “Fix-It-Now” Channel
Data Source: NiCE platform data (Dec 29, 2025)
AI-handled inquiries increased 77% year-over-year during peak shopping demand.
Voice calls rose 35% year-over-year, reinforcing that voice remains the “get it fixed now” channel.
Inquiry volume spiked sharply on Black Friday and Cyber Monday, signaling customers still expect same-day resolution in high-stakes moments.
The Insight:
This is modern CX in one snapshot: customers don’t care who resolves it, AI or humans, they care how quickly and completely the issue gets solved. AI takes the volume. Voice catches the complexity.
🧰 THE AI TOOLBOX: Google Photos on Samsung TVs (A Consumer AI Move With Big CX Lessons)
The Tool: Samsung says Google Photos will come to Samsung TVs in 2026, starting with “Memories” on the big screen, with additional AI-powered creation features to follow.
What it does: It brings a personal photo library to a shared household screen, with curated highlights (“Memories”) and AI creation features, including themed templates and generative edits.
CX Use Case:
Customers are getting used to AI that organizes life for them — and they’ll expect that same “it just works” feeling in your journeys, too.
Shared-screen experiences are a sneakily important design problem: easy sign-in, fast account switching, and a clear “hide private stuff” option are no longer nice-to-haves.
Trust:
A living room TV is not a private device. AI curation is fun until it surfaces something awkward in front of the wrong people. The brands that win will make privacy controls obvious, quick, and impossible to miss.
Source: Samsung Newsroom
⚡ SPEED ROUND: Quick Hits
Wall Street Journal: Corporate AI adoption is still uneven — lots of “small automation,” not a lot of true autonomy. Translation for CX: pilots are easy; trustworthy execution is the hard part.
TechCrunch: “2025 was the year AI got a vibe check.” Consumer patience is thinning when AI features feel forced, confusing, or untrustworthy — a warning for every brand rolling out automation into support.
Source:Google: A roundup of December AI updates highlights a theme CX leaders should steal: verification tools, translation upgrades, and “make it easier to do the thing” features — not just shiny demos.
📡 THE SIGNAL: The New CX Battleground Is “Safe Action”
As AI moves from answering questions to taking actions, the experience stops being about clever wording and starts being about responsibility. Customers will reward the brands that make automation feel safe: clear permissions, clear confirmations, and an easy way to reach a human when the stakes are high. That’s the new loyalty loop: confidence beats convenience.
See you tomorrow,
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