CX has seen many gains in the last 12 months from agentic AI and Copilots, but as all practitioners know, the changes keep coming from all directions.
For example, within organizations synthetic personas and digital twins are nothing new, but in CX they’re on the cusp of mass adoption as practitioners better understand the benefits of modelling journeys and road testing new products or features before going live.
On the customer side, AI search and AI assistants have the power to drastically shift the power balance, forcing organizations to redesign everything from individual journeys to the entire service suite.
Laurence Buchanan, global leader of EY Studio+, tells CX Network what practitioners need to understand about the high-tech future that lies ahead.
CX Network: Digital twins are widely used to refine process excellence but are less talked about in CX. How can CX benefit from test and train processes using digital twins and synthetic personas?
Laurence Buchanan: We’re already deploying synthetic personas and digital twins with clients – modelling customer flows on cruise ships and in shopping malls and stimulating marketing campaign responses.
Synthetic personas are a powerful way to bring the customer’s voice into the conversation. They allow business users to ask, “How would this persona feel about a new product or service?” and interact with insights from voice-of-customer research in a simple, intuitive way. They also support training and sales teams – stimulating real-world scenarios like sales pitching or complaint handling.
Digital twins, meanwhile, help optimize physical environments and operations. For example, modelling passenger or customer flow on a cruise ship can reveal bottlenecks and unlock opportunities for efficiency and better experiences.
CX Network: How accurate are digital twins and synthetic personas for predicting NPS?
Laurence Buchanan: They’re valuable tools, but not a complete solution. Always, it depends on the quality and context of the underlying data, which is often backward-looking, like for example, Voice of the Customer research and transactional data. While they provide directional insight, they lack the subtle nuances human research might spot in real-world observation.
CX Network: We’re hearing more about how AI search is reshaping the first step in the customer journey. Pairing this with what you’ve said about synthetic personas and digital twins, how can organizations re-determine the balance between humans and machines across their service ecosystem?
Laurence Buchanan: We’re seeing a clear shift from search engines to answer engines – a trend that brings both opportunity and risk. Some organizations are embedding artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities into their digital platforms, leveraging proprietary data and IP to give customers powerful, personalized tools.
On the other hand, it’s easy to envisage a future where customers turn directly to third-party AI services to interact with companies on their behalf. They can use prompts such as “optimize my household utility suppliers” and bypass direct engagement all together. Winning the battle for trust will be critical.
The right human-machine balance must align with the customer proposition. A low-cost provider may lean toward automation, while a luxury service might favor a balance of machine and human-led experience.
CX Network: Customers are also now able to use AI assistants to complete their service tasks. If both customers and organizations are using AI for service, what does this mean for the future of the service suite?
Laurence Buchanan: We will need to design for a spectrum of experiences ranging from human-to-human to machine-to-machine.
Over time, AI will eliminate the non-value-adding tasks, but differentiation will depend on creating emotional loyalty and memorable experiences that machines alone can’t deliver.
CX Network: Do you believe organizations are moving fast enough to prepare for this shift?
Laurence Buchanan: Pace varies widely by geography and sector, but awareness and interest in AI is extremely high.
Highly regulated industries face more constraints, making rapid innovation far more challenging.
As with any major technological shift, however, organizations with strong foundations – robust data and a customer-centric culture – will be better positioned to take advantage of the opportunities and mitigate threats.