CX under pressure: New tech, new threats, new mandate
How CX Leaders can carve a new niche in an ever-more challenging operating environment
August 18, 2026
| Free CX Network Webinar Series
Day One
9:00 am - 10:00 am
CX under pressure: New tech, new threats, new mandate
Melanie Mingas -
Editor-in-chief,
CX Network
Jim Tincher - CEO and Founder, Heart of the Customer
Sabina Onwuka - Head of Customer Services, London Borough of Barking & Dagenham
Dan Gingiss - Chief experience maker, The Experience Maker, LLC
As a new generation of CX technology promises to deliver frictionless, hyper-efficient experiences, the specialists who have dedicated their careers to exceptional customer outcomes are finding themselves increasingly frozen out of the conversation.
In fact, whether by design or through restructure, many major organizations no longer have a senior executive assigned to advocate for the customer, or own outcomes and relationships at the highest level.
Those who are still able to do this work describe mounting pressure: to deliver more with less, to justify the cost of technologies that remain expensive and experimental, and to prove their value not annually or quarterly, but daily.
The timing is less than ideal. As consumers turn to their AI assistants to discover new brands, products and services, discoverability and relevance are dependent on having an undisputable public track record for superior CX. Operational excellence, outstanding reviews, and coherent, unconflicted knowledge are now the currency of success.
CX Network's editor-in-chief, Melanie Mingas, will host an engaging panel tackling how CX can thrive in an operating environment where business growth is the north star, but the route to it often bypasses the customer. Crucially, the panel will address the question on everybody's mind: Where does CX go from here?
The discussion will cover:
- How CX practitioners can confront emerging threats posed by new tech, global economic pressures and changing job roles.
- The challenges of maintaining relevance as AI transforms the operating environment for organizations and customers.
- The new job roles emerging, and the skills practitioners will need in future.
- Where the opportunities for career development and recognition lie moving forward.
