Smarter Conversations: Defining the 2026 Landscape

Welcome to the Experience Economy 2.0

If 2025 was the year the world woke up to the potential of AI in the contact center, 2026 is the year we master it. We’ve moved beyond the initial scramble to deploy tools and are now entering an era of true orchestration. It’s no longer just about solving tickets; it’s about Smarter Conversations and Stronger Relationships.

At CX Today, we’ve watched the landscape shift seismically. Google Trends data confirms what we’ve seen on the ground: search interest for “AI Agents” increased by nearly 100% between January and September 2025. This wasn’t a fleeting hype cycle; it was a steady acceleration through Q1 and Q2, cementing itself as a mainstream enterprise imperative by the end of the year.

This data signals a critical turning point. The market has transitioned from exploring concepts to demanding practical solutions for automation, copilots, and autonomous workflows. As we look ahead, our mission evolves: to be your definitive guide in navigating this complex intersection of customer strategy, operational excellence, and technological innovation.

We are thrilled to unveil our 2026 Editorial Calendar—a roadmap designed to help IT buyers, CX leaders, and strategists stay ahead of the curve.

Plan Your 2026 Strategy

Three Pillars of Coverage

For 2026, we are widening our lens to cover the complete CX stack. Our editorial coverage will be structured around three core dimensions to ensure we address the needs of every stakeholder, from the server room to the boardroom:

1. Customer-Centric Strategy: Deep dives into journey orchestration, hyper-personalization, and building trust in a digital-first world.
2. Operational Excellence: Practical guidance on modernizing contact centers, optimizing workforce engagement, and leveraging analytics for decision-making.
3. Technology & Innovation: Breaking news and analysis on Agentic AI, automation, data platforms (CDP), security, and compliance – to name just a few.

Strategic Evolution: Built for the Future

To support this expanded vision, we are making significant investments in our own capabilities:

• Team Expansion: We have doubled the size of our editorial and market analysis team to provide faster, deeper coverage of the stories that matter.
• AEO (Answer Engine Optimization): As search evolves, so do we. We are optimizing our content to ensure our partners’ stories are discoverable by the AI-driven search engines of tomorrow.
• Powered by Techtelligence: Coming in 2026, our new website experience will be driven by Techtelligence, our proprietary audience intelligence engine, delivering hyper-relevant content to our readers and unparalleled intent data to our partners.

2026 Editorial Themes & Pillars

Our coverage for the year is built on a foundation of ten robust editorial pillars. These are categorized to reflect the maturing market and emerging opportunities:

The Foundation

Contact Center & Omnichannel: The backbone of CX strategies. This remains a board-level investment priority, ensuring continuous audience demand and reinforcing our authority in the space.

Expansion Areas

AI & Automation: Moving from hype to proven value. Automation is unlocking efficiency and new capabilities, making this one of the most dynamic areas of enterprise investment.

CRM & Customer Data Management: As enterprises unify data for personalized engagement, CRM and CDP adoption is accelerating, driving strong buyer interest.

Customer Analytics & Intelligence: Enterprises are under pressure to turn data into action. Analytics platforms are now central to ROI measurement.

Security, Privacy & Compliance: With data breaches and AI regulations on the rise, security and governance are now at the heart of every CX decision.

Customer Engagement & Journey Orchestration: The key to seamless experiences. There is strong enterprise demand for clarity on strategy, integration, and ROI here.

Workforce Engagement Management (WEM): Employee experience is a critical differentiator. We track how tools link workforce engagement directly to business outcomes.

Service Management & Connectivity: The unsung heroes. Reliable operations underpin every CX investment, making this vital for IT leaders seeking resilience.

New Frontiers

Marketing & Sales Technology: The convergence of marketing and CX tech stacks creates new opportunities to align engagement across the entire lifecycle.

Community & Social Engagement: Peer-to-peer communities are becoming vital touchpoints. We explore strategies to scale trust and engagement in this space.

Q1 Spotlight Preview: Starting Strong

We are kicking off the year with three high-impact themes designed to address the most pressing challenges buyers face right now, aligning with key industry moments:

• JANUARY: Modernising the Contact Center for Always-On Service
  • The Focus: Enterprises are accelerating CCaaS adoption as legacy platforms struggle with scale and resilience.
  • Why it matters: Early-year stabilization is critical. This theme aligns perfectly with CCW Nashville, where modernization and cloud migration will dominate buyer agendas.
• FEBRUARY: Protecting Customer Trust in the Age of AI
  • The Focus: Addressing the urgent risks of GenAI—misuse, bias, and data exposure—that have made customer trust a boardroom priority.
  • Why it matters: With early-year regulatory resets on the horizon, the market is amplifying the need for transparent, compliant CX systems that protect the brand.
• MARCH: From Data to Decisions – Real-Time CX Insights
  • The Focus: Helping leaders turn vast CX data streams into actionable insight at the exact point of interaction.
  • Why it matters: As Adobe Summit and Enterprise Connect spotlight analytics, AI, and retention, we focus on how real-time data drives immediate impact and ROI.

Rising Trends We’re Watching

Beyond our monthly themes, our editors are tracking the “Rising Stars” of CX—topics that are rapidly gaining traction and buyer intent. Key trends for 2026 include:

• Agentic AI: The next evolution of chatbots. We look at autonomous agents capable of resolving complex, multi-step issues (like refunds and rebooking) without human intervention.
• CCaaS Migration: The foundational shift. Legacy on-prem systems are failing, forcing buyers to move to the cloud for AI access and resilience.
• RevTech Integration: Breaking silos between Support, Sales, and Marketing. CIOs and CMOs are buying unified stacks to drive revenue, not just solve tickets.
• Customer Data Platforms (CDP): The “Brain” of CX. High-value infrastructure buys needed to unify fragmented data to power AI and personalization.
• Proactive Customer Service: Shifting from reactive to proactive. Tech that notifies customers before they call (e.g., outage alerts) to reduce costs and churn.
• Voice Biometrics: Fraud is rising with AI deepfakes. Biometrics is becoming the only scalable way to authenticate callers securely and quickly.
• Machine Customers (AI Customers): Preparing for a future where bots buy on behalf of humans. CX leaders need infrastructure that allows “bot-to-bot” commerce without friction.
• Composable CX: For mature buyers who want to build a custom stack using APIs and microservices rather than buy a rigid suite.
• Total Experience (TX): Strategies that align EX and CX tech stacks, recognizing that happy agents equal happy customers.

A Thank You to Our Community

None of this is possible without you. To the PR agencies, marketing teams, practitioners, contributors, and the vibrant global CX community—thank you for making 2025 a transformational year. Your insights, stories, and innovations fuel our work.

Meet the CX Today News Team

Connect with the experts shaping the narrative for 2026:

• Rob Scott – Publisher
• Rob Wilkinson – Senior Technology Evangelist
• Rhys Fisher – Associate Editor
• Nicole Willing – Technology Journalist
• Francesca Roche – Technology Journalist
• CX Today News Desk: [[email protected]]

Here’s to a prosperous 2026. Let’s build smarter conversations and stronger relationships, together.

The CX Today Team