Future-proof with CX and AI: creating value beyond economic uncertainty

Consumers in the U.S. face an overall average effective tariff rate of 18.3%, the highest since 1934, while firms identify trade and tariffs as their primary business concern. This economic environment fundamentally alters the strategic value proposition of customer experience investments.

Traditional approaches that optimize for either operational efficiency or personalized service create unnecessary trade-offs that become unsustainable under economic pressure. This whitepaper presents a framework for customer experience strategy that uses artificial intelligence to achieve both operational efficiency and relationship depth at the same time.

Our analysis of current market conditions, combined with case study evidence from early AI adopters, demonstrates that organizations that use customer-centric AI strategies achieve average cost reductions of 40% while improving customer satisfaction scores by up to 65%. These dual outcomes position organizations to outperform competitors during times of economic uncertainty, while still allowing them to build sustainable competitive advantages into the future.

Economic uncertainty brings new strategic implications

Economic uncertainty continues to reshape the strategic priorities of businesses across industries. Recent Federal Reserve analysis indicates that 25% of companies are reducing hiring and capital expenditures in response to current tariff structures, with manufacturing firms reporting contraction rates of 32% and 29%, respectively.

This widespread operational retrenchment underscores a critical shift: customer retention is now disproportionately valuable compared to new customer acquisition. However, the strategic response to this shift often defaults to a binary choice, either focus on cost-cutting to compete on price or invest in customer experience to compete on relationship quality.

This dichotomy, while common, is overly simplistic and risks undermining long-term resilience. Historical data from previous economic contractions demonstrates that organizations prioritizing customer experience during downturns consistently emerge stronger, with enhanced market positions and higher customer lifetime values. Yet, traditional customer experience strategies often require significant human resource investments, which can feel untenable under current financial constraints.

This tension gives rise to what we term the CX paradox: the point at which customer experience becomes most strategically critical, yet traditional approaches to delivering it are least financially viable. The solution doesn’t lie in a choice between cost efficiency and customer experience, but in reframing the problem entirely. Since one of modern CX's biggest challenges is the need to deliver both radically efficient and radically personal service, the goal must be to scale effortlessly across all CX channels without compromise.

Organizations must move beyond the narrow focus on cost-cutting and explore innovative, scalable approaches to customer engagement. By leveraging technology, streamlining processes, and rethinking resource allocation, businesses can deliver meaningful customer experiences without compromising financial stability.

The path forward requires a shift in perspective, one that recognizes customer experience not as a cost center but as a strategic asset. Companies that embrace this mindset will be better positioned to navigate uncertainty and build lasting competitive advantage.

A successful customer experience transformation requires technology platforms that can deliver personalized, proactive, and integrated CX without the same level of agent resource requirements.

Customer-centric AI implementation

Effective AI implementation depends on consistent customer relationships rather than automation alone. We found five key capabilities that distinguish successful implementations from failed ones. Keep these in mind when building out your AI strategy.

1. Unified customer intelligence consolidates all customer data into individually accessible profiles that can be used to inform AI and human-led conversations. This intelligence enables personalized experiences. And when 66% of shoppers expect brands to understand their needs and an additional 80% are more likely to buy from a company that provides a tailored experience, this approach is more important than ever. It treats every interaction as part of a continuous relationship rather than an isolated event. Brands that use unified customer intelligence see that

2. Context-aware automation lets AI systems understand customer requests, history, preferences, and sentiment. This contextual awareness allows AI systems to personalize responses and highlight escalation points that might need human intervention.

3. Omnichannel conversations ensure that customers can move between communication channels without losing context or repeating information. It makes sense to employ an AI system that seamlessly operates across voice, chat, SMS, and email just as consumers do. This capability eliminates the time and talent wasted on information gathering. It also removes a traditional point of customer frustration in unconnected channel models of support.

4. Proactive engagement allows organizations to identify and address customer issues before they need a bigger action. Predictive analytics can find potential problems, letting outreach AI and teams prevent escalation while demonstrating attention to customer needs.

5. Intelligent escalation protocols make sure that complex issues reach human specialists with complete context and recommended resolutions. This approach maximizes the efficiency of human agents and keeps AI from making barriers to effective resolutions.

Strategic recommendations

An AI rollout should focus on enhancing rather than replacing human customer service capabilities. AI systems should provide human agents with complete customer history, recommended resolutions, and relevant context rather than attempting to handle all customer conversations independently.

Brands should measure success through relationship quality metrics rather than efficiency measures alone. Customer lifetime value, Net Promoter Score (NPS), and customer effort scores provide much better indicators of long-term success than traditional metrics such as average handle time or deflection rates.

Economic uncertainty creates the sorts of conditions that fuel customer experience differentiation. Brands can position themselves for faster growth later by investing in relationship-building technology now.

Gladly Customer AI makes brands more resilient

Gladly Customer AI is a modern CX solution built to unite all the siloed operations common to CX operations. By integrating seamlessly with existing systems, it consolidates data and creates consistent, relationship-driven conversations across all channels.

• Customer-centric intelligence: Built around customers, not tickets, enabling personalized service through comprehensive customer context.

• Genuine intelligence and action: Natural conversations with proactive resolution and adaptive responses aligned to brand standards.

• Omnichannel fluency: Continuous conversations across all channels without context loss or repetition.

• Assistive automation: Automates routine tasks and seamlessly transitions complex cases to human agents with full context.

• Simple, powerful usability: Intuitive, easy-to-manage tools designed for rapid adoption without heavy IT involvement.

Gladly customers win with customer-first tactics

Using AI that consistently puts the customer first makes things run smoother and improves how we connect with customers. Here are some examples of Gladly customers who are proving that a customer-centric AI approach pays off.

Crate & Barrel's started using Gladly’s AI-powered customer support platform and generated over $10 million in added revenue. Access complete customer purchase history and preferences let them identify relevant product recommendations and resolve issues more effectively. Now what was once their cost center has transformed into a revenue driver.

KÜHL gained a whopping 120% improvement in average revenue per customer conversation. They also resolved 59% of customer questions through Gladly Customer AI. It just goes to show that AI implementation in CX can reduce costs and increase customer value when properly focused on building customer relationships rather than task deflection.

Breeze Airways reduced SMS response times by 95% while handling 71% of customer conversations through AI. Their implementation focused on maintaining conversation context across channels, which let their customers begin conversations wherever they felt most comfortable. Those customers could then seamlessly transition to human agents when necessary.

AI for resilience, loyalty, and growth despite the tariff reality

Let’s face it, tariffs are here. And the economic conditions they create bring challenges for brands across industries. But hopefully, some opportunities will rise from these uncertain times, too.

Brands will be able to weather the current economic storm if they seize on the opportunity to make customer relationships a strategic asset and implement AI technologies that enhance human connection. The strategic choice is not between efficiency and personalization, but between short-term cost reduction and long-term competitive advantage. Customer-centric AI implementation lets brands achieve both radical efficiency and radical personalization, creating sustainable value propositions that remain effective no matter what economic conditions arise.

The time to act is now. Competitive differentiation through CX has a small window of impact. Early adopters gain advantages in a space like this, while later adopters face the challenge of competing against organizations with established tech and deeper customer relationships.

So find your AI relationship partner now to give your business a powerful edge in today’s challenging economic landscape. Gladly’s Customer AI partners with brands like yours to reimagine CX, turning it into a driver of loyalty, resilience, and revenue growth.

Ready to transform your CX strategy? Discover what Gladly Customer AI can do for your business. Click here to learn more and schedule a demo.

This analysis is based on economic data from Federal Reserve research, Penn Wharton Budget Model projections, and case study evidence from organizations implementing customer-centric AI strategies between 2023-2025.