Customers expect brands to understand them deeply and anticipate their needs – and 73% of consumers surveyed in “The State of Customer Experience” report say they’re likely to purchase again from companies that consistently offer personalized service.

Personalization has evolved well beyond addressing customers by their names during service interactions or sending out targeted marketing emails. It’s now about using real-time data and advanced technologies to create hyper-personalized experiences — interactions so tailored they make customers feel uniquely seen, valued and understood.

As we look ahead to the future of customer experience (CX), the role of AI — particularly generative AI and agentic AI — is poised to transform personalization.

Unlocking Hyper-Personalized Experiences With AI

For years, personalization in CX has equated to basic segmentation (for example, routing calls by customer value) and tailoring interactions based on information such as demographics or products owned. Artificial intelligence, especially generative AI, is elevating what’s possible.

AI can harness immense data sets, including every interaction with a customer, their sentiment pre- and post-interaction, and their actions on the organization’s website. This allows organizations to build real-time, comprehensive customer profiles that adapt dynamically as the relationship progresses.

AI can enable brands to go beyond traditional personalization strategies by offering the next best offer or next best action at the most relevant moment. And generative AI is designed to remove the barriers to creating tailored content at scale, allowing for organizations to leverage their full breadth of customer knowledge to deliver personalized experiences to individuals or targeted segments.

For instance, consider how AI could allow organizations to anticipate when a customer might need product support, an alternative solution or information that only applies to a small set of customers — delivering proactive, targeted engagement that feels natural rather than intrusive.

This shift points the way to transforming contact centers from cost centers into powerful profit centers. Equipped with AI-driven insights, agents can cross-sell or up-sell with precision, providing tailored solutions at the right moment instead of generic pitches. Such hyper-personalization empowers businesses to meet customer expectations at every touchpoint, ultimately driving satisfaction, loyalty and revenue. And beyond cross-sell and up-sell, this type of personalization can build loyalty that results in recommendations and repeat business.

Proactive Personalization: Moving from Reactive to Invisible Service

While many businesses are still reactive — waiting for customers to raise concerns or complaints — AI is enabling proactive, even “invisible” service. Proactive outreach makes the service “invisible,” meaning that organizations seamlessly resolve customer issues in the background while keeping the customer informed and assured. Proactive personalization involves anticipating issues or needs before they arise, saving customers time and frustration.

For example, utility companies regularly inform customers about potential severe weather events, sending proactive updates well ahead of any potential outages. Newer approaches to proactive personalization could include retailers notifying customers about delayed or lost shipments (and even dispatching a new shipment with a replacement item). Or it could be automobile manufacturers pushing over-the-air software updates to vehicles, adding new features without requiring the customer to visit a dealer.

In each case, by sending timely, clear and informative messages to customers, organizations proactively keep customers up to date. A valuable side benefit to the organization is that the volume of inbound requests from customers is reduced, allowing the service team to focus on providing support to customers that truly need it — and potentially avoiding unnecessary service costs.

This invisible, anticipatory approach is set to become the new gold standard in CX and a powerful asset for driving customer satisfaction and loyalty.

Simplifying Sophistication with Personalization and Human Touch

Despite advancements in AI, the future of personalization isn’t about eliminating the human element. Instead, it’s about creating harmony between AI-powered interactions and human expertise. The goal is to make every customer experience feel effortless, regardless of whether the interaction involves a chatbot, a voice assistant or a human advisor — or a combination of interaction types.

AI will likely handle most routine interactions, such as resetting passwords or checking account balances. This can enable human agents to focus on complex or sensitive matters.

Importantly, there should be a seamless transition between AI and human agents. For customers, the shift must feel natural, as though they are continuing the same conversation rather than starting over — with context preserved so they don’t need to repeat information they’ve already shared.

AI’s role isn’t to replace humans but to augment and elevate them by making the right insights available and providing the right recommendations at the right time. In the future, human agents will act more like trusted advisors rather than support representatives, equipped with AI insights to offer empathetic, meaningful solutions.

Preparing for the AI-Powered Future

The future of personalization in CX is about delivering seamless, proactive and hyper-relevant experiences powered by AI. With generative AI, businesses can anticipate customer needs, offer real-time tailored solutions, and empower employees to provide exceptional service.

To prepare for this AI-driven future, organizations should:

  • Build an ongoing data strategy: Ensure that customer data flows seamlessly across channels, touchpoints and functions (for example, service and marketing) to support real-time personalization. Data is the lifeblood of AI and holds the insights to create meaningful personalization.
  • Understand what customers value in personalization: Personalization can take many forms. Understanding what is most valuable to your customers — whether that’s a deep understanding of their history with your organization or highly targeted offers and outreach — allows you to meet customers where they are.
  • Use AI to improve the agent experience: Equip customer service agents with AI tools such as virtual co-pilots that surface useful information in the moment or speech-to-text analytics that learn from the most successful interactions to improve every interaction and make them more personalized.

Organizations that deliver the truly hyper-personalized interactions that today’s advanced AI enables are those most likely to consistently exceed customer expectations, setting a new benchmark for excellence in customer experience.

Watch our webinar “CX trends in 2025 and beyond” to learn what other trends experts say are on the horizon in 2025.