In the year 2025, AI and CX go together like cops and robbers, peanut butter and jelly, and The Notebook and tears.
Yet, despite how prevalent the technology now is within the customer service and experience space, many organizations still view it as a separate tool that gets bolted on.
While this can be effective, to truly reap the rewards of AI, organizations need to start thinking bigger – treating AI as a foundation, not a toolkit.
That much is clear after speaking with Sirte Pihlaja, Head of Team at CXPA Finland, who is organizing the event.
This year’s event will see speakers and CX professionals from around the globe descending on Helsinki for tw0 days of talks and workshops on how AI-native organizations are the future of CX.
But what exactly does AI-native mean?
For Pihlaja, it is about moving far beyond surface-level AI adoption.
“We want to help organizations become AI-native,” she said, explaining how relying on scattered pilots or small internal experiments simply won’t cut it.
“If you think, ‘Ok, I’m going to use ChatGPT or Copilot’… you might only achieve like a 10% personal productivity gain from that. But you won’t be able to deliver the major improvements that you’re looking for.”
And this isn’t purely a CX issue. Pihlaja details how AI-native organizations can have a wider economic impact.
“Finland [Philaja’s home country] has been in an economic slump for almost 20 years,” she said, and AI offers one of the clearest pathways out of it, but only if organizations re-engineer themselves with enough urgency and ambition.
In her words:
“We have been handed the technology and the solution… it’s just a question of making people understand how vital this is for our society in the first place.”
That belief shapes this year’s CX Masterclass, which brings together 25 speakers from across business, government, and technology.
The goal is to give leaders the cross-functional perspective needed to go from dabbling with AI to embedding it in the operating model of the entire organization.
Building the Case for AI-Native Organizations
Pihlaja’s definition of ‘AI-native’ goes well beyond integrating agents into customer service or adding a handful of automation features; it means rethinking how processes run, how decisions are made, and how work is distributed between people and AI systems.
She points to Sitra – the Finnish organization responsible for public-sector funding – as an example of the shift that is already underway.
According to Pihlaja, Sitra has decided that if an organization does not have a plan in place to become AI-native, it will not be given funding.
While these measures may seem extreme, they emphasize how strongly Finland believes in the technology .
Pihlaja believes that CX sits at the center of this transformation. Not because CX teams own AI strategy, but because customer journeys are where the impact becomes tangible – and where broken processes reveal themselves most clearly.
Still, she is clear that this event is bigger than a CX audience alone.
“This is not just for CX people,” she said. “We have sent the invite out to any business people who are interested in developing their business and their organizations.”
Why the Broader CX Community Should Pay Attention
Many CX leaders are already feeling the pressure to adapt, but Pihlaja argues that the change coming next will be deeper and faster than anything the sector has faced in a decade.
For example, Nokia’s former Head of Culture and Leadership, Mark Hayton, will explore what it means to lead in a world where AI agents don’t just support teams – they may be the team.
Pihlaja summarized this by explaining that the industry is “on the brink of a big change… the future of work is going to look totally different when many of us will maybe have an AI agent as our team member… or a boss who is actually an AI.”
Although many a disgruntled employee might be reading this and joking with their colleagues about an AI boss being able to do a better job – but it is a serious point.
How will agents respond and adapt to a world where the contact center leaders might be AI?
Meanwhile, C-level leaders from Finnair, Fujitsu, Microsoft and others will discuss how enterprise strategy shifts when organizations must design with, not just for, AI.
CX leaders often talk about customer expectations rising. Pihlaja’s point is that expectations aren’t the only thing rising. The capabilities available to customers, agents, and AI-driven systems are rising too – and the organizations that fail to adapt their operations quickly will fall behind.
Machine Customers: Where the Shift Becomes Real
Linked with the overall theme of AI-native organizations is the role of machine customers.
This year’s Masterclass devotes significant attention to that subject, beginning with the opening keynote from Gartner VP Don Scheibenreif, who has spent more than a decade researching machine customers.
Historically, “machine customers” referred to connected devices, such as a fridge reordering groceries, or a car booking maintenance. But, as Pihlaja explained, “GenAI and agentic AI have reshaped what we mean by machine customers.”
These agents now have the capacity to negotiate, compare, choose, and transact at a level far beyond earlier definitions.
The closing keynote from Standard Chartered Bank’s Katja Forbes explores another angle: how machine customers will transform complex B2B environments.
“One of her tasks is to understand how machine customers are going to be affecting this kind of clientele,” Pihlaja said – referring to governments, institutions, and large corporates
Other sessions delve deeper into the operational implications. Nexi Group’s agentic commerce lead will lay out how identity, security and payments will function when AI agents initiate transactions.
And for those looking for practical next steps, day two focuses on hands-on capability building – from AI search optimization to agentic commerce tools that help organization’s “speak the same language with the AI… across different channels and different spots”
You can discover everything about CX Masterclass 2025, including the full list of speakers and events, by checking out the website today.
You can also tune in to the livestream here.
