📅 December 31, 2025 | ⏱️ 4-min read
Good Morning!
The Executive Hook:
We’re entering the “adult supervision” phase of enterprise AI. The pilot-era vibe of “try everything and see what sticks” is giving way to something more sober: consolidation, governance, and outcomes. For CX leaders, this is good news—because customers don’t care how many AI tools you’re testing. They care whether you solved their problem without making them repeat themselves.
🧠 THE DEEP DIVE: Enterprises are about to pay fewer AI vendors—and that changes CX
The Big Picture: Investors are betting that 2026 is when enterprises stop experimenting with dozens of AI tools and start consolidating spend into a smaller set of platforms that prove real ROI.
What’s happening:
The “pilot pile” is getting cleaned up. After years of proofs-of-concept, budgets are shifting toward tools that can survive procurement scrutiny and security review.
Platform gravity is real. Larger vendors with integrations, admin controls, and governance features are positioned to win consolidation cycles.
ROI pressure is moving from “cool demo” to “measurable outcome.” The winners will be tied to revenue, cost, or risk—not novelty.
Why it matters:
If your service org is running three copilots, two knowledge tools, a separate QA model, and an “agent” platform that IT barely tolerates… you’re going to feel this shift first. Consolidation usually means hard questions: Which tool actually improves resolution? Which one reduces handle time without spiking repeat contacts? Which one can be audited when something goes sideways?
The takeaway:
Before your CFO forces the conversation, do it yourself: pick one customer journey (billing dispute, delivery issue, password reset—whatever hurts most) and map the AI stack to outcomes. If two tools do the same job, you’re not “innovating”—you’re adding failure points.
Source: TechCrunch
📊 CX BY THE NUMBERS: Customers now expect “always on” service — with receipts
Data Source: Zendesk CX Trends 2026 (updated Dec 17, 2025; global research across 6,182 consumers and 5,115 CX professionals in 22 countries)
74% of consumers say AI has raised expectations for 24/7 customer service availability.
76% of customers would choose a company that lets them share text, images, and video in the same support thread without restarting.
95% of consumers expect an explanation behind AI-made decisions.
The Insight:
This is the new CX bar: always available, multimodal, and explainable. If your AI can’t keep context, accept the “proof,” and explain its decision in plain language, it’s not reducing effort—it’s just relocating it onto the customer.
🧰 THE AI TOOLBOX: GenTabs (via Google Labs “Disco”)
The Tool: Google Labs is testing Disco, an experimental browsing experience whose first feature is GenTabs, built with Gemini 3.
What it does: GenTabs looks at your open tabs + chat history, then spins up an interactive mini “web app” to help you finish a complex task—no coding required. It also links back to original sources on the web.
CX Use Case Ideas:
Faster case research for escalations: Open the customer’s account notes, policy pages, prior tickets, and shipping/billing tools in tabs—then have GenTabs generate a “case workspace” (timeline, key facts, next-best actions) your agent can refine with plain language.
Instant journey “debugging” boards: When you’re chasing a spike in repeats (“Where’s my refund?”), you can assemble the relevant dashboards, knowledge articles, and defect tickets—then let GenTabs turn that chaos into a structured tracker with sources attached.
Trust:
The most CX-friendly part here is receipts: every generative element ties back to the web sources it came from. That’s how you keep speed and defensibility—especially when policy details and customer trust are on the line. (Also: treat anything that uses browsing context as a governance/privacy conversation, not just a productivity win.)
⚡ SPEED ROUND: Quick Hits
Meta is buying AI agent startup Manus. More “agentic” capability inside the platforms where customers already message brands (WhatsApp, Instagram, Messenger) raises the bar for what customers will expect—and what brands will need to govern. Source: Reuters
Microsoft is reshuffling leadership to push its AI strategy beyond OpenAI. For CX leaders on Copilot/Dynamics ecosystems, expect faster product moves—and more urgency around adoption and operational discipline. Source: Financial Times
Enterprise AI adoption is expected to get more “real” in 2026. The headline isn’t models—it’s integration into everyday work (including service and support), where value becomes measurable. Source: Barron’s
📡 THE SIGNAL: The era of “AI theater” is ending
The theme tying today together is simple: credibility. Consolidation happens when leaders stop being impressed by possibility and start demanding proof. In CX, that’s a gift. It forces us to build AI around the only metric that truly matters: did the customer feel helped?
I’m taking the rest of the week off for the holiday. See you in the new year!
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