Xperience 2026 brings the Genesys community, including customers and experts in the world of customer experience (CX), together in Las Vegas for three days of ideas, innovation and practical learning about what comes next in customer experience. 

Across more than 80 sessions and six learning tracks, the focus is increasingly clear: AI is moving from isolated tools and experiments toward a more connected, agentic model for CX. That shift has implications not only for technology, but for how organizations work, how people and AI collaborate and how customer context is used to create better outcomes. 

We’re capturing some of the biggest ideas, conversations and moments from Xperience here as they happen. 

 

Thursday, September 3: Looking Ahead

What Thursday’s Keynotes Tell Us About the Future of AI+CX

The final day of Xperience opened with “Your map for success with Genesys Cloud,” bringing together three leaders from the Genesys Customer Success team, CCO Scott Cravotta and SVPs Janelle Binder and Neil O’Donoghue, to explore with customers a practical question: How can organizations turn rapid advances in AI into a clear path forward? 

Throughout the week, that theme has stood out. The opportunity is no longer simply to automate more interactions or add more AI capabilities. It is to use AI to orchestrate people, data and systems around real customer outcomes. The most important question is shifting from “What can AI do?” to “What can AI help us achieve for customers, employees and the business?”

That means CX leaders increasingly need to think beyond individual use cases. As AI becomes more autonomous, organizations need clearer operating models for how work gets done, where human judgment matters most, how context travels across journeys and how autonomy is governed.

The afternoon keynote, “Redefining what’s possible: Leading through uncertainty, not around it,” widened the conversation beyond technology. After two days focused on AI, orchestration and transformation, the closing session explored the leadership challenge that sits underneath them: how to keep moving when change is constant and the path ahead is not always clear.

 

Inside Executive Perspectives

Alongside the main Xperience program, Executive Perspectives brought together an invite-only group of senior CX leaders for a more focused conversation about the forces reshaping business, leadership and customer experience.

Designed as an event within the event, the program moved executives from connection to understanding to action — combining outside perspectives, peer exchange and Genesys leadership around questions such as how AI is changing business strategy, how leaders should respond to uncertainty and what a new operating model for agentic orchestration means in practice.

Across sessions hosted by a series of special guests, the emphasis extended beyond technology itself to the decisions leaders now face around growth, trust, resilience, creativity and execution. The goal was to help executives leave Xperience with greater clarity about what matters now and confidence about what to do next.

 

Three Questions Leaders Are Wrestling with Now

The conversations at Xperience have also surfaced a broader set of leadership questions: 

How fast should we move?
AI is advancing quickly, but sustainable transformation still depends on governance, infrastructure, skills and organizational readiness. 

What should remain distinctly human?
As AI takes on more work, companies need to be more deliberate about where empathy, judgment, creativity and accountability create the most value. 

How do we turn new technology into new ways of working?
The hardest part of AI transformation may not be deploying the technology itself. It is redesigning workflows, roles and operating models so people and AI can work together effectively. 

 

That’s a Wrap: One Last Lap Around Xperience

Before Xperience came to a close, attendees had one more chance to explore the Orchestrators Hall, join breakout conversations and connect with peers, partners and Genesys experts.

After three days of big ideas, practical insights and new connections, Xperience 2026 leaves us with plenty to take forward — and a clearer view of where customer experience is headed next.

   

   

   

 

Wednesday, September 2: The Big Ideas Take Center Stage

What We Learned from the Xperience Opening Keynote

The first full day of Xperience opened with “Your power move for the experience economy: Genesys Cloud,” as Genesys Chairman and CEO Tony Bates, CTO Glenn Nethercutt and Head of Product, Mike Szilagyi, explored what’s next for CX+AI.

One of the clearest themes was the growing importance of context. As consumers become accustomed to personal AI that remembers preferences, understands history and uses context to make interactions more useful, expectations for brand experiences are rising too. Companies often have even richer customer context; the challenge is activating it across the journey.

For CX leaders, that points to a bigger shift: a new operating model for CX, moving from human-centric, to AI-assisted, to increasingly agentic. As AI becomes more deeply embedded in how a business operates, organizations need to rethink how people, AI, data and systems work together to improve customer outcomes — with context carried across connected experiences and more work orchestrated dynamically across people and AI.

Read more about today’s keynote here.

 

From the Breakout Rooms: Three Ideas CX Leaders Are Wrestling With

More than 80 sessions across six tracks are taking the keynote themes into more practical territory.

Across the program, three questions keep recurring:

1. How do we turn customer context into better experiences?
The more effectively AI can understand the customer, the journey and the surrounding context, the more relevant and useful an experience can become. The challenge is connecting that intelligence across channels and interactions rather than leaving it trapped in individual systems.

2. How should humans and AI work together?
As AI becomes more capable, organizations need more than a collection of tools. They need a clear operating model for roles, workflows, accountability and handoffs between people and AI.

3. How do we connect AI to measurable outcomes?
The conversation is moving beyond experimentation. CX leaders increasingly want to know how AI actually improves customer outcomes, employee effectiveness, efficiency and business performance — with trust and governance built in.

 

Xperience Podcast: Coming Soon

Host Melissa Dixon and featured expert Chief Strategy Officer Peter Graf took to the Orchestrators Live Stage to record two episodes of our upcoming Xperience Podcast. The podcast will explore the human, economic and technological forces shaping the experience economy.

At the event, they sat down with Ferrari to explore how loyalty becomes love, and with author Alex Kantrowitz from Big Technology to explore how AI is rewriting the rules of business.

Visit this page to sign up to be notified when our podcast launches later in September.

Around the stage, other activities in the Orchestrators Hall gave attendees the chance to move from ideas to hands-on exploration through product demos and experimenting with the latest innovations in agentic AI.

Tomorrow, Xperience turns from the possibilities of agentic AI to the practical path forward — with customer perspectives and conversations about what it takes to put a new operating model for CX into action.

 

Tuesday, September 1: Xperience Begins

Xperience 2026 Is Underway

Yesterday, Xperience 2026 officially began in Las Vegas.

For three days, CX leaders, technology experts, partners and innovators will explore what happens as AI moves beyond assisting individual tasks and begins helping orchestrate experiences across an organization.

Across more than 80 sessions and six learning tracks, attendees are digging into some of the most important questions facing CX leaders today: how to reinvent CX operating models for the AI era, reimagine the human + AI workforce, move AI from pilot to business impact, apply innovation within different industries, expand CX beyond the contact center and navigate risk, trust and compliance.

A common thread connects those topics. AI is becoming more embedded in how experiences are designed, delivered and improved — which means transformation increasingly touches the operating model as much as the technology itself.

The conversation will extend well beyond the breakout rooms. Keynotes will explore the future of Genesys Cloud and the Experience Economy, while the Orchestrators Hall will bring the technology to life through demos, expert conversations and hands-on experiences.

The emphasis throughout Xperience is on moving from possibility to practice: not simply asking what AI can do, but how organizations can use it to work differently and create better outcomes for customers, employees and the business.

 

Celebrating the Orchestrators Innovation Awards

The first day recognized organizations and individuals redefining what’s possible through AI-Powered Experience Orchestration with the Genesys Orchestrators Innovation Awards. 

Selected from a highly competitive global field of nominees, eight winners were recognized for innovation, impact and leadership in customer experience: 

  • Experience Orchestration Excellence: Computacenter 
  • Level Up: Utility Warehouse 
  • Humanitarian Impact: Child Bereavement UK 
  • Sustainability Impact: BCD 
  • Orchestrator of the Year — C-Suite: Vijay Narsapur, SVP and Global Head, Customer Experience Independent Unit, Infosys BPM 
  • Orchestrator of the Year — CX Leader: Pamela Bou Zeid, Head of Shared Services & CX, Al Wathba Insurance 
  • Orchestrator of the Year — Developer: Eystein Kylland, Tech Lead, Contact Center, DNB Bank 
  • Orchestrator of the Year — Agent: Maribeth Lagman, Customer Experience Agent, Trademark Global 

Together, the winners offer an early glimpse of a broader theme at Xperience 2026: meaningful CX innovation isn’t only about adopting new technology. It’s about applying it in ways that improve experiences, solve real problems and create measurable impact for customers, employees, communities and the business. 

 

Welcome to Xperience 2026

The day closed with the Xperience Welcome Reception — bringing customers, partners, Genesys leaders and attendees together before the main conference program gets underway.

It was a chance to reconnect, meet new people and get a first look at the community that will fill the Wynn over two packed days.

The first full day begins today with the opening keynote and a packed program of sessions, demos and conversations about where CX goes next. Stay tuned.