Age of the Customer
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The Iran War Will Change How Consumers Spend
I recently published my research on the Pessimism Paradox, which describes an uneasy equilibrium between crashing consumer sentiment and disproportionately strong economic fundamentals. I identified four forces that maintain this tenuous balance – amplification, proximity, polarization, and indulgence. While we were putting the research through our rigorous vetting process, a new war broke out in […]
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Guest Speakers Reveal Where AI Belongs In CX — And How Leaders Protect Trust
AI is reshaping CX faster than most teams can govern it — forcing leaders to get clear on where AI belongs and what stays human. At CX Forum West, guest speakers from Nationwide, Schwab Advisor Services, UKG, PetSmart, Ancestry, Together Credit Union, and AppFolio share how they’re addressing these challenges across agentic AI, design workflows, self‑service, and CX leadership.
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Beyond Chatbots: Designing Conversational Banking Experiences That Scale
Learn how banks can scale conversational experiences at CX Summit EMEA 2026
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What the History of Ad Agencies Tells Us About CMO Power: Order-Takers to Strategic Partners—and Back Again
A Love Story Older Than Television The tension between CMOs and advertising agencies didn’t start with AI, procurement, or any media disruption. And history makes one thing clear: Agencies only gain power when CMOs don’t — or can’t — fully exercise theirs. It’s embedded in the very origin of the advertising agency itself. To understand […]
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Consumers Put A WBD-Paramount Merger On Probation
Following a dramatic and politically charged bidding process, Warner Bros. Discovery’s proposed acquisition of Paramount has entered its most consequential phase. On April 23, WBD shareholders will vote on whether to approve the deal — a decision that would further concentrate market power across film, TV, streaming, and news. At stake is the future of […]
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Physical AI Matters More Than Humanoid Robots
Paul Miller and Charlie Dai discuss the importance of physical AI to robots, autonomous vehicles, and other types of physical automation in their new Forrester research report.
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Turn AI Distrust Into Customer Trust — And Win The CX Future
Consumer use of AI is growing, yet their trust in it remains low. That gives organizations a unique opportunity.
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AI Search Will Crack The Foundation Of B2B Marketing’s Accountability Model
B2B marketers have long relied on engagement metrics to demonstrate marketing’s value. AI is making this practice untenable.
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Americans Feel Miserable. Why Do They Keep Spending?
Consumer confidence languishes near historic lows, surveys drip with despair, and media narratives fixate on fragility. And yet, consumers open their wallets, and corporate profits roll in. This is not a passing contradiction. It is the defining paradox of today’s “pessimism economy.” Our new research — Down But Not Out: Growth Strategies For The Pessimism […]
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Forrester’s Top 10 Emerging Technologies For 2026: Beyond Chat
In 2026, AI leaves the chat and enters the physical world. From layer zero experiences and robotics to multi‑agent systems and quantum computing, this year’s top emerging technologies reveal how AI is reshaping interaction, infrastructure, and the foundations of the future.
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Stop Pretending 2026 Will “Stabilize” — Continue To Build For Volatility
If marketing, CX, and digital leaders have learned anything in the past year, it’s mastering the art of finessing how to plan and execute — for growth! — under highly fluid conditions. Since we first published Forrester’s Leading Through Volatility series a year ago, consumer leaders have steered their organizations through rapid evolution across geopolitical events, technology (hello, agentic commerce and artificial general intelligence), role evolution (good to meet you, AI CMO), and consumer sentiment.
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The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2026 — Our Evaluation Of 13 Key Vendors
The Forrester Wave™: Intranet Platforms, Q2 2026 published on April 9. I conducted an in-depth analysis of 13 vendors and evaluated their platforms across 28 criteria (which included 21 criteria for current offering and seven for strategy). This assessment resulted in four Leaders, six Strong Performers, and three Contenders. Here’s A Few Things That Jumped […]
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Agentic Prospecting: Seven Reasons The Hype Falls Short
The sales tech market is increasingly filled with a range of bold claims that autonomous AI agents can continuously monitor accounts, detect buying intent, trigger outreach, book meetings, and even influence deal progression with minimal human involvement. The promise is seductive: always-on digital sellers working every account, every minute of the day. But enterprise buyers […]
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Your Customer Advocates Are Not Your Crisis Communications Plan
Loyal customers can help in a crisis, but don’t make customer advocates your crisis communications plan.
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What Marketing Leaders Should Not Miss At CX Forum West
This year’s event dives deep into the convergence of brand experience, CX, and AI. Marketing leaders will gain new strategies, frameworks, and advice for earning loyalty and trust.
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What Marketing Leaders Should Not Miss At CX Forum East
This year’s event dives deep into the convergence of brand experience, CX, and AI. B2C marketing leaders will gain new strategies, frameworks, and advice for earning loyalty and trust.
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Why B2B Summit North America Is Built For Meaningful Connections
Discover how B2B Summit North America is designed for meaningful networking — from workshops and roundtables to wellness, Marketplace breaks, and evening events.
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Context Graphs Are A Convergence, Not An Invention
We’ve Been Building The Foundation For 40 Years A year ago, I wrote about the graphic future of IT management — IT management platforms converging on graph architectures to create a digital twin of the IT organization. The governance question I raised: Who owns this graph? Nine months later (December 2025), Foundation Capital declared that […]
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Agentic Payments In B2C Commerce: Where We Are Now
The state of agentic payments is evolving rapidly. This post summarizes five key developments and provides a timeline of critical announcements since November 2025.
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When Cyber Insurance Meets Cyber War, Coverage Becomes Conditional
For years, cyber insurance relied on generic war exclusions that rarely shaped enterprise decisions. That changed when NotPetya, a Russia‑linked attack, caused billions in collateral damage in a blast radius of unrelated but affected organizations and triggered prolonged legal battles over whether traditional war clauses applied to cyber events. The result was landmark settlements for […]
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