IDC sees a real opportunity to differentiate on customer experience, approaching each customer as an individual through real-time hyper-micro personalization, no longer relying just on segment-based approaches to customer engagement. To execute the customer journey effectively and efficiently, retailers need an agile customer experience architecture providing seamless composition of customer services, leveraging information, processes, and channels consistently. Automation is a key way of achieving customer experience personalization at scale. Globally, 44% of retailers are implementing the artificial intelligence (AI) foundation that will be instrumental to the purpose. AI is a key enabler of personalization, and it’s at the heart of customer experience platforms, driving an innovative approach and changing the knowledge map from customer behaviour to the characterisation of its social context, potential needs, and decision making.

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