Home > Columns > CRM Columns

2026: The Year of CX AI Payback

In November and December 2025, DMG Consulting conducted its annual worldwide survey of enterprise customer experience (CX) AI goals and investment priorities to discern what enterprises are planning for 2026. Now in its twelfth year, the study provides one of the industry’s longest‑running views into how contact center and CX priorities are evolving. This year’s findings, confirming that contact centers have made AI the strategic cornerstone of CX transformation in 2026, are supported by the top CX goals: contact center modernization, operational efficiency, improved reporting/analytics and insights, expanded self-service, and enhanced data quality. Enterprises plan to advance these objectives through investments in AI infrastructure and orchestration, analytics, and other CX technologies. Notably, and in contrast to 2025 and prior years, organizations are placing greater emphasis on measuring and quantifying the impact of their CX AI investments to ensure they achieve the expected return on investment (ROI). 

2026 CX AI Strategic Goals and Investment Priorities

^{Source: DMG Consulting LLC, January 2026}

This figure shows the 11 top responses to the question: Which of these strategic goals and investment priorities are on your 2026 roadmap? Survey participants were asked to select their top five answers to this question. The leading priority, chosen by 57.1% of respondents, was to modernize, digitize, and AI-enable the contact center. While not surprising, it marks the first time in 11 years that delivering a great CX was not the top enterprise CX goal, signaling that organizations are moving beyond rhetoric and taking decisive action to achieve this objective. The second most selected answer, cited by 52.1% of respondents, was enhancing automation and operational efficiency to reduce CX cost and effort. Together, the top two responses reflect a market shift toward initiatives that deliver quantifiable and measurable outcomes and business value. The third-ranked priority, improving CX analytics, reporting, and insights, was selected by 48.6% of survey participants, highlighting the growing demand for better data to support AI-enabled solutions. While this goal has appeared consistently in past surveys, its high placement reinforces its growing importance to organizations. In the AI era, CX functions require new key performance indicators (KPIs) that provide the insights and information CX leaders need to deliver an effective, personalized, and differentiated CX. 

In the second tier of responses, enhancing self-service offerings – such as intelligent virtual agents (IVAs) and conversational AI (CAI) – ranked fourth, selected by 47.1% of respondents. Two priorities tied for fifth place at 33.6% each: structuring enterprise knowledge and data to utilize AI in supporting human agents and AI automation, and investing in employees, enhancing agent desktop tools, and improving staff well-being. These two priorities are interrelated, as clean and well-organized knowledge and data are essential for effective AI-enabled agent augmentation tools. The final goal in this tier, selected by 27.9% of respondents, was aligning efforts enterprise-wide to improve the customer journey. AI and analytics are giving organizations better insights into the customer end-to-end journey, an objective that has eluded them for decades. This visibility is necessary to gain an appreciation for how customers are treated throughout the enterprise, not just within the contact center.

In the next tier of responses, improving governance, compliance, and security ranked seventh, selected by 20% of participants. Two priorities tied for eighth place at 17.1% each: migrating CX systems to the cloud, and identifying new KPIs to measure the impact of AI transformation. While these goals fall lower on the list, they remain essential as organizations work to modernize their operations with AI and automation. Enhancing business continuity (BC)/disaster recovery (DR) ranked last, with 8.6% of the responses, followed by the “other” category. Although BC/DR is a requirement for contact centers, it consistently appears at the bottom of the priority list as contact center leaders focus their budgets on higher-impact initiatives. 

Final Thoughts

The findings from DMG’s 2026 survey show that the CX industry has reached an inflection point. After the past couple of years of AI pilots and proofs‑of‑concept, enterprises are ready to move forward with implementations, but they are requiring vendors to commit to measurable results and ROI from their investments. The top strategic goal for 2026—modernizing, digitizing, and AI‑enabling the contact center—signals a shift from broad AI aspirations to specific tactics and technologies that deliver measurable outcomes. As AI capabilities mature, organizations will apply them to increasingly sophisticated tasks, but widespread adoption will depend on the technology’s ability to deliver sustained, quantifiable business benefits. 

Companies have ambitious plans for AI in 2026, and the data indicates they are going to move beyond pilots into full‑scale deployment. Despite ongoing concerns around AI cost, data readiness, and operational maturity, enterprises are planning to invest in the infrastructure, orchestration platforms, data‑quality initiatives, and governance frameworks needed for AI to be effective. In 2026, DMG expects enterprises to move from aspiration to disciplined execution of AI-enabled CX applications. 

The column and chart are based on the survey findings in DMG’s CX AI Playbook: Strategic Outlook and Investment Priorities. Click here to obtain the full report.