Figure 5 Supplemental Material We would like to thank the Forrester analysts who contributed to this research: David Brodeur-Johnson; Katy Cobian; Su Doyle; Colleen Fazio; Angelina Gennis; Melissa Gill; Katerina Gryparis; Kara Hoisington; Pete Jacques; James McQuivey, PhD; Joana de Quintanilha; Ron Rogowski; Rich Saunders; Maxie Schmidt; Betsy Summers; Katy Tynan; and Judy Weader.

This role profile provides a job description and competency inventory for the user experience (UX) researcher role, also known as experience researcher or design researcher. UX researchers are responsible for building empathy for and understanding of user needs within an organization through rigorous and collaborative research approaches. The successful candidate for this role will possess strong research expertise, product sense, communication skills, and cross-functional collaboration abilities.

Forty-five percent of design teams that plan to grow intend to hire for the UX researcher role, according to Forrester’s State Of Design Survey, 2025 . This finding reinforces that as organizations grow, AI is augmenting — not eliminating — the need for human‑led research. AI experience designers also rank among the top five roles teams plan to add, reflecting the need for new AI-driven interaction patterns in newly identified use cases across enterprises. These trends show design leadership’s investment in both research and AI experience design as they staff and adapt for the future and ensure experiences are human-centered. This is a snapshot of Forrester’s data on the roles design teams plan to add.

In our evaluation of experience research platform (XRP) providers, we identified the most significant ones and researched, analyzed, and scored them. This report shows how each provider measures up and helps you select the right one for your needs.

Design teams most commonly use experience research repositories (XRRs) to organize, access, and socialize research findings, thus reducing waste, increasing productivity, and improving engagement, according to Forrester’s State Of Design Survey, 2025 . Increasingly, XRRs also support AI adoption: 52% of respondents use centralized research insights to train their internal AI tools, signaling a shift from repositories as insight libraries to inputs that support AI tool improvements. This data snapshot highlights how design teams use XRRs and their growing importance for internal AI training.

You can use experience research platforms (XRPs) to understand customers in depth, reduce risk in product and service decisions, and scale experience research in your company. But to realize these benefits, you’ll first have to select from a diverse set of vendors that vary by size, type of offering, geography, and use case differentiation. Experience researchers should use this report to understand the value they can expect from an XRP vendor, learn how vendors differ, and investigate options based on size and market focus.

AI is transforming the design workflow by compressing phases, blurring roles, and reshaping how teams collaborate. Organizations that act now to embed AI enable designers and researchers to focus more on opportunity identification and product strategy — work previously crowded out by delivery pressure. To realize these benefits, design, research, digital, and CX leaders must intentionally embed AI into how they work while preserving the core principles and phases of effective design. This report explains the key shifts underway, highlights nine high-impact AI use cases across design and research, and offers practical guidance for implementing them responsibly and effectively.

Customer experience (CX) leaders enter the budget planning cycle for 2027 under greater pressure to scale AI amid volatility. While global CX leaders are optimistic about their resources, organizations risk scaling fragmented data, inconsistent processes, and weak CX foundations — ultimately amplifying dysfunction. To succeed, CX leaders must fund core capabilities like connected data, journey ownership, and governance; cut spend on outdated and low-value activities; and experiment with AI-driven ways to enhance decision-making. This report gives CX leaders practical guidance on where to increase, decrease, avoid, and experiment CX investments to drive sustainable impact in 2027.

Customer experience (CX) leaders are pragmatically optimistic about their resources as they try to reverse declines in CX quality: 39% plan to increase their overall CX investments above inflation in the next 12 months. To succeed, they must act decisively to boost their teams’ productivity, accelerate the flow of insights across the organization, and support tech leaders in driving AI adoption. This report provides CX leaders with data-driven guidance on where to increase, decrease, or experiment with their budgets for 2026.

The Forrester Positive Emotion Creation Model provides a blueprint for organizations to craft digital experiences that elicit positive emotions from users. It guides the strategic evoking of positive emotions in digital experiences, aiming to boost user satisfaction, engagement, and loyalty. In this report, we describe how the Positive Emotion Creation Model leverages tools like Robert Plutchik’s Wheel of Emotions to facilitate the deliberate planning of emotional transitions throughout the user journey.