The retail climate for 2025 is a bit uneasy. Even so, despite inflation concerns and tariff headwinds, many retailers are still betting on growth. They’re focusing their attention on loyalty programs, digital commerce innovation, and omnichannel customer experience (CX) improvements. But there’s one engine quietly driving all three forward: AI.

Retailers that once struggled to piece together customer insights across disconnected systems are now turning to AI to create more fluid, personalized experiences across both digital channels and brick-and-mortar stores. At the same time, AI is helping frontline contact center teams become more efficient, productive, and strategic — despite budget constraints and increasing complexity.

Whitepaper

The Ultimate Guide to Driving Frictionless Retail CX

Our latest guide The Ultimate Guide to Driving Frictionless Retail CX explores how retailers can leverage AI to streamline customer and employee experience.

Let’s break down how AI is reshaping both the customer and frontline employee experience.

Why AI has become essential in retail CX

AI is about more than just automation; it’s about better decision-making. In a fast-moving retail climate, customer expectations shift daily. CallMiner’s 2024 CX Landscape Report data shows that the top challenge is navigating those rapidly changing customer behaviors. Cost-conscious, impatient shoppers now expect retail CX teams to deliver more, faster, with fewer resources.

That’s where AI can be an enabler for contact center and CX teams. According to the 2024 CX Landscape Report:

• 91% of retail CX leaders believe AI will help optimize CX under financial strain.
• 54% use predictive analytics to forecast demand and customer behavior.
• 46% are automating tasks to improve frontline agent productivity.

In short, AI is helping teams move from reactive to proactive CX management.

From CX insight to enterprise-wide impact

Retailers are no longer just gathering customer insights — they’re acting on them. AI is revealing new dimensions of customer behavior, loyalty drivers, and sentiment and emotion trends that help teams customize experiences. Consider this:

• 49% say AI reveals what drives loyalty, helping them shape CX strategies that stick.
• 45% use customer insights to identify customer behavior trends, a big increase from 34% just one year ago.
• 51% now provide agents with AI-powered real-time guidance, helping them respond to customer concerns faster and better.

Customer insights aren’t just limited to the contact center. This data is influencing marketing, product, sales, and more — building a more complete view of each customer across their entire journey.

AI and the employee experience

Frictionless CX starts with empowered employees. That’s why retailers are increasingly using AI to improve frontline agent experience — not just their output.

With the rise of data-driven coaching and real-time feedback:

• 85% agree AI will be key to unlocking frontline agent potential.
• 43% say AI frees agents to focus on complex interactions and tasks AI can’t do.
• 55% are investing in regular training and re-training, up from 31% in 2023.

Retailers that once relied on manual feedback loops are now using AI to coach agents, personalize training paths, and provide unbiased performance evaluations.

A smarter, faster approach to analyzing customer feedback

Retailers are moving toward a more complete understanding of their customers — by combining both solicited feedback (like surveys) and unsolicited feedback (from everyday, natural customer interactions).

• More teams are focused on collecting an equal amount of solicited and unsolicited feedback (20% in 2024 vs. 11% in 2023).
• More are automating feedback analysis, freeing analysts to focus on strategy.

This shift not only improves the organization’s view of the customer — it reduces time to insight. With a better understanding of customer feedback, retailers can respond to customer needs and preferences faster, improving satisfaction and reducing churn.

The road ahead: AI challenges remain

Despite the upside, concerns linger — especially around the lack of AI-focused talent and AI implementation. Many retail leaders cite a lack of technical knowledge and higher-than-expected AI maintenance costs as top challenges to an ideal implementation of AI for CX.

That’s why the future of AI in retail CX will be defined by usability. Solutions like conversation intelligence are embedding AI into everyday frontline contact center and analyst workflows — making advanced capabilities accessible to non-experts, and reducing reliance on specialized teams.

Retailers are no longer asking whether they need AI, they’re asking how to use it smarter. The retailers thriving in 2025 are those using AI to simplify contact center operations, personalize customer journeys, and empower frontline employees at every touchpoint.