While You Debated AI, Your Customers Started Using It
PLUS: Smart AI readiness assessment + Quick consumer experience audit
Start every workday smarter. Spot AI opportunities faster. Become the go-to person on your team for what’s next.
🗓️ September 10, 2025 ⏱️ Read Time: ~4 minutes
👋 Welcome
You know what happened while everyone was debating whether AI would replace humans? Consumers started actually using it. The shift is real: we've moved from "AI might be useful someday" to "AI is helping me right now."
📡 Signal in the Noise
Every story today points to the same thing: AI is finally becoming consumer-ready instead of just enterprise-ready. Companies aren't building AI demos anymore—they're building AI products that regular people want to use.
🎯 Executive Lens
Here's what I'm seeing: the most interesting developments aren't coming from the companies with the most sophisticated AI. They're coming from teams that understand how to make AI feel natural and helpful in moments that already matter to customers. That's a fundamentally different design challenge than most tech companies have been solving.
Stories That Matter
👗 Ralph Lauren launches AI stylist that actually understands fashion
So Ralph Lauren just rolled out this AI stylist called "Ask Ralph," and honestly, it's pretty impressive. You can literally ask it "What should I wear to a concert?" and it comes back with complete outfit recommendations you can actually buy. But here's the thing—it's not just suggesting random items. It actually understands Ralph Lauren's aesthetic well enough to put together looks that feel authentically on-brand, which is kind of remarkable when you think about how subjective fashion is.
Why this matters: Look, we've all seen those generic product recommendation engines that feel completely soulless. But when a luxury brand trusts AI to represent their entire aesthetic and brand personality, that tells me AI has finally crossed a threshold. It can handle nuanced, subjective recommendations that require real understanding of context and customer intent.
Try this: Think about your most experienced customer service rep—the one who really "gets" your products and customers. What questions do they answer that require judgment, not just facts? Those moments are exactly where AI like this can start adding genuine value instead of just automating the easy stuff.
Source: Ralph Lauren
🤖 Birdeye unveils 10+ AI agents that actually complete marketing jobs
Okay, this one caught my attention because it's not another "AI assistant" that helps you work faster. Birdeye built over 10 AI agents that literally complete entire marketing workflows from start to finish—social media publishing, review responses, lead generation, the whole thing. These agents use context and memory to make decisions like actual skilled marketers would. It's less "helpful tool" and more "digital team member."
Why this matters: Most AI tools just make you faster at doing what you're already doing, right? But this agentic approach changes what you can actually accomplish. When AI agents can run A/B tests, manage content calendars, and respond to customer comments with appropriate brand voice, your human team can focus on strategy instead of getting buried in execution tasks.
Try this: Map out your team's weekly marketing routine and look for the stuff that follows predictable patterns. Social media responses, basic lead follow-ups, routine reporting—these are perfect for AI agents that can work independently while your people tackle the creative, strategic work that actually moves the needle.
Source: PR Newswire
📱 Amazon launches Lens Live for instant visual shopping
Amazon just dropped something pretty cool—Lens Live, which lets you point your phone camera at literally anything and find similar products to buy. It's not just another barcode scanner. This thing uses AI to understand what you're looking at and suggests products that match the style, color, or function. You can scan someone's outfit on the street and find affordable alternatives, or point it at furniture in a hotel lobby and order something similar for your home.
Why this matters: Visual search is becoming the new voice search—it's how people naturally want to interact with AI when they're shopping. When customers can just point their phone at something they like instead of trying to describe it in a search box, that removes so much friction from the buying process. Plus, it works in real-time, so the moment of inspiration becomes the moment of purchase.
Try this: Think about all the times customers struggle to describe what they want when they contact your support team. "It's like that blue thing but smaller" becomes a really common conversation. Visual search tools like this show where customer service could move from descriptive language to actual images.
Source: PYMNTS
🏷️ New Gen builds AI infrastructure to power fashion brands
Here's one that caught my eye—New Gen just launched an AI-ready infrastructure platform specifically designed for fashion brands to better serve customers across emerging AI shopping platforms. Their platform helps brands maintain consistent messaging and personalization whether customers are shopping through traditional websites, AI chatbots, or voice assistants. The goal is to make sure your brand personality comes through no matter how AI is mediating the interaction.
Why this matters: We're heading toward a world where customers interact with your brand through AI intermediaries—whether that's ChatGPT, Alexa, or some visual search tool. But if you don't control how your brand shows up in those AI responses, you lose control of your customer experience. New Gen is betting that brands need infrastructure to maintain their voice and personality across all these AI touchpoints.
Try this: Ask ChatGPT or another AI about your brand and products. What does it say about your return policy, customer service quality, or product features? If that information doesn't match your intended brand positioning, you're seeing exactly why AI-ready brand infrastructure is becoming essential.
Source: Yahoo Finance
🔍 Podonos raises $2.4M to solve voice AI's biggest problem: knowing if it actually works
Here's a startup that's tackling something really practical—Podonos raised $2.4 million to build evaluation tools for voice AI. They use over 150,000 human evaluators plus AI automation to test whether voice AI actually works in the real world. Not just technical performance, but whether it sounds natural, handles emotions appropriately, and feels trustworthy to actual users. Companies like Resemble AI and Play AI are already using it.
Why this matters: The biggest barrier to deploying voice AI isn't building it—it's knowing whether customers will actually like using it. When investors fund AI evaluation tools, they're betting that measuring AI performance will become as critical as building AI capabilities. Smart companies test with real people before they deploy to everyone.
Try this: Before rolling out any voice AI, test it with real customers in messy, real-world situations. This isn't just about technical accuracy—it's about whether AI sounds natural, handles frustrated customers appropriately, and feels trustworthy to the people who actually have to use it.
Source: PR Newswire
💰 Quick hits:
• ElevenLabs announces $100M employee stock sale at $6.6B valuation, doubling their value as voice AI becomes essential infrastructure
• Genesys expands ServiceNow partnership for Agent2Agent orchestration, enabling AI agents to autonomously collaborate on customer interactions
• Xiao-I Corporation renews 5th consecutive year with major Asian fashion retailer for AI customer engagement across 27 markets
🎯 Prompt of the Day
Title: AI readiness assessment for consumer-facing features
You're helping me evaluate our organization's readiness to deploy consumer-facing AI features. For [YOUR CUSTOMER TOUCHPOINT], analyze and create an action plan covering:
1. **Customer Expectation Analysis:** What AI experiences do our customers already use daily and how do those set expectations for interactions with our brand?
2. **Use Case Prioritization:** Which customer pain points could AI solve immediately versus which require longer-term capability building?
3. **Trust and Transparency Framework:** How will we communicate AI usage to customers and handle situations when AI doesn't work perfectly?
4. **Performance Measurement:** What metrics will tell us if customers actually prefer AI assistance over current alternatives?
5. **Implementation Roadmap:** Start with the lowest-risk, highest-impact AI features and build toward more complex applications.
Focus on solving real customer problems, not showcasing impressive technology.
This helps you build AI features customers will actually appreciate rather than just tolerate. Use it to create a deployment strategy that starts with genuine value and builds customer confidence in your AI capabilities.
⚡ Try This Prompt
Audit our current customer experience for AI opportunities.
Evaluate:
1) Which touchpoints involve repetitive questions or standard responses, 2) Where customers currently wait for information they need immediately, 3) What personalization could happen if AI understood individual customer context, and
4) Which interactions would be better if available 24/7.
Rank opportunities by customer impact and implementation difficulty.
This quick assessment reveals where AI can genuinely improve customer experience rather than just automating internal processes.
💭 CX Note to Self
The best consumer AI doesn't feel like AI—it just feels like a better version of what customers already expect.
👋 See You Tomorrow
Today's stories mark a turning point: AI is finally becoming something consumers interact with directly, not just something that powers backend systems. The question isn't whether your customers will encounter AI anymore; it's whether they'll encounter yours or your competitor's first.
What's one customer touchpoint where AI could remove friction without removing the human connection? That's where you should start.
—Mark
💡 P.S. Want more prompts? Grab the FREE 32 Power Prompts That Will Change Your CX Strategy – Forever to start transforming your team, now. 👉 FREE 32 Power Prompts