20 Surprising Ways AI Is Reshaping The Customer Journey

Forbes

6 hours ago

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Businesses and consumers alike recognize that artificial intelligence plays a significant role in today's customer journeys—receiving personalized recommendations and accessing chatbot support are now standard features of many digital transactions. But AI also holds largely untapped potential for brands aiming to enhance service and deepen customer relationships.
From enabling conversational product searches to equipping service reps with real-time insights that speed up issue resolution, AI can help brands improve responsiveness, personalize engagement and foster greater customer loyalty. Below, members of Forbes Technology Council discuss surprising ways AI is reshaping the customer journey—and why brands need to stay on top of what's new and what's next.
One surprising way AI is reshaping the customer journey is by influencing invisible moments—optimizing logistics, predicting friction and personalizing experiences before a user even interacts with a brand. Many brands focus on front-end AI, but the biggest opportunity lies in using AI to quietly orchestrate a seamless, proactive experience long before a user clicks 'buy' or 'support.' - Pallishree Panigrahi, Amazon Key
Advanced AI can predict intent based on subtle behavioral and contextual signals—location patterns, online content consumption, device usage and transactional data. Ads can then be personalized across all devices based on where the customer is emotionally in the journey. This feels 'timely' to the customer, but it's actually predictive. - Lalena Nau, Zeta Global
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AI is quietly transforming on-premises dining by enabling real-time, hyper-personalized guest experiences. From adapting menus to guest history or mood to triggering proactive service based on live conditions, the next frontier isn't digital—it's anticipating needs before guests voice them. Most brands haven't tapped into that yet. - Tiffany Saylor, FB Society
AI is starting to reshape the customer journey through real-time emotional intelligence. By reading tone, facial cues and behavior, AI can adapt in the moment—not just to what customers do, but also to how they feel. Most brands haven't caught on yet, but those that do will create more intuitive, human-centered experiences that build deeper trust and loyalty. - Gjoko Muratovski, Australian Institute of Advanced Technologies (AIAT)
People aren't Googling which running shoes to buy anymore. Instead, they're asking questions of GenAI tools like ChatGPT and receiving a direct answer, along with a link to buy. If brands aren't thinking about AI search, they're already behind. - Net Kohen, LinkMe
AI is reshaping the very idea of the customer journey. While most brands aim to optimize it, the real win may lie in minimizing or eliminating it altogether. For instance, a car insurance provider could use AI to monitor market rates and auto-renew customers at the best value, removing the need for them to shop around. The shorter the journey, the better the experience for both brand and customer. - Deepak Tiwari, Ernst & Young
The proliferation of AI is diluting customer demographics in ways we're only beginning to notice. Segmentation across similar customer profiles is blurring or vanishing completely as AI becomes our personal purchasing consultant—shaping our perception of a product before we've hit the landing page or even seen the pitch. It knows us and what we like and is the invisible hand guiding our choices. - Evan J. Schwartz, AMCS Group
AI silently empowers frontline staff, providing language translation and giving them real-time insights, sentiment cues and summaries of conversations. It makes interactions more personal and empathetic without the customer ever knowing AI is involved. - Martin Taylor, Content Guru
Financial companies will be able to analyze payment behavior and flag anomalies in real time. Enhanced security and fraud prevention will balance the speed of instant payments, while granular payment data offers opportunities for personalization. - Taira Hall, Citizens
AI is quietly redefining the customer journey by predicting needs before customers articulate them. Through passive intent recognition across platforms, AI anticipates user desires and triggers hyper-personalized experiences in real time. This shift transforms marketing from reaction to intuition, turning brands into proactive companions rather than reactive service providers. - Nicola Sfondrini, PWC
We have seen a game-changing trend where brands are incorporating voice AI agents to improve CX and provide support. In the future, every SaaS product could ship with fully automated support that is available 24/7. - Fenil Suchak, OpenFunnel
AI is beginning to reshape the timing of customer engagement, not just the message. By predicting when a person is most likely to respond or convert, AI can optimize outreach windows on an individual level. This subtle shift from 'what' to 'when' is underutilized by many brands and can dramatically improve outcomes without changing the message itself. - Antara Dave, Microsoft Corporation
One surprising thing about AI in customer experience is how it's exposing the gap between what companies think customers want and what they actually value. Many brands are still using AI to push more personalization, despite data showing that customers often prefer simplicity and consistency. The real opportunity lies in using AI to challenge your assumptions, not reinforce them. - Ishaan Agarwal, Square
AI can create hyperrealistic 'digital twins' of customers for risk-free testing of products and experiences, uncovering hidden needs before a real launch. Many brands haven't fully grasped this deep personalization potential beyond basic data analysis. - Ambika Saklani Bhardwaj, Walmart Inc.
The reality is that brands will no longer own the shopping journey altogether. It used to start with a Google search, visits to a few brand sites and then a checkout. Now, shoppers turn to AI agents like ChatGPT to decide what to buy—and, importantly, buy it right there. The future of e-commerce is agent-led, not brand-owned. Retailers want control, but the shift is underway. Welcome to agentic commerce. - Kamal Nahas, pap!
Agentic AI, powered by emerging standards like Model Context Protocol, decomposes interactions into reusable, context-aware conversation modules, enabling companies to deploy tailored experiences across platforms (phone, chat, voice assistants, AR/VR and so on) without rebuilding interfaces. This model stands to change how we think about customer journeys, adapting dynamically to individual preferences. - Nick Burling, Nasuni
AI is collapsing linear customer journeys into instantaneous decision moments, often before a user even signals intent. By balancing what to remember and when to forget, AI crafts emotionally resonant, frictionless experiences that challenge brand assumptions and optimize for discovery in an AI-first world. - Mark Mahle, NetActuate, Inc.
AI is quietly reshaping CX by learning when not to personalize, strategically forgetting past interactions to avoid user fatigue or creepiness. By tuning memory thresholds based on user psychology, AI creates emotionally safer experiences that feel familiar, yet not intrusive—something most brands haven't optimized for. - Jagadish Gokavarapu, Wissen Infotech
AI enables shoppers to summarize thousands of product reviews across platforms into clear pros and cons within seconds. This strips away cherry-picked testimonials and forces transparency. Brands still banking on curated praise haven't realized they're competing with the customer's personal research analyst. - Andrew Siemer, Inventive
AI is reshaping the customer journey by becoming a post-purchase concierge. Beyond conversion, AI can now orchestrate personalized onboarding, usage tips, proactive issue resolution and even product education, transforming support into a continuous value experience. Yet most brands still treat post-sale moments as transactional, missing a massive opportunity for loyalty and upsell. - Pawan Anand, Ascendion