From Amnesia to AI: The Three Stages of CX
By UJET Contributing Writer: Jamie Smith (Founder of Customer Futures)
This week, I’ve been reflecting on how far CX has come. And how close we are to another big jump.
You can almost see it across three chapters: yesterday, today, and tomorrow.
Yesterday: ‘The Age of Amnesia’
Remember calling your bank in 2015? You'd punch in your account number, wait on hold, then repeat that same number to three different people. Every brand had its own login, every call meant starting over, and you carried the entire burden of context.
It was clunky. Reactive. Fragmented. Where businesses couldn’t remember who you were, what you’d bought, or how best to help you.
And the truth is, companies didn’t care. Because they were in control.
Today: ‘The Age of Orchestration’
We've made progress. Your FaceID now replaces twelve passwords, and platforms like UJET connect chat sessions to voice calls so you don't repeat yourself. Agents get real-time context instead of guessing. It's a massive leap from the amnesia days.
It means journeys feel less broken. Routing to the right person who can help is now much smarter. And customer service agents now get more context in real time.
Yes, it’s a leap forward. But things are still mostly handled on the business side - and on their terms. Brands decide what data to collect, how to connect it, and when to escalate.
It’s much better. But when you think about it, it’s still one-way.
Tomorrow: ‘The Age of (Customer) AI’
The good news: There’s a flip coming.
Soon, customers won’t just show up with a query. They’ll show up with their own digital tools.
A digital wallet that can prove who they say they are, and what they are entitled to. A data store that can bring their preferences, history and details of what they need. And soon, a personal AI agent that can even act for them.
This flip changes everything.
Imagine an airline check-in that doesn’t involve typing passport numbers, but sharing a ‘verified travel credential’ straight from your wallet. Or a support call that doesn’t start with “please share your account number” because your data store already shared it, along with why you are calling.
And when you have to deal with a travel delay, your hotel reservation gets rebooked automatically by your AI agent, talking directly to the hotel’s AI. You’ll get the confirmation without ever having to pick up the phone, or click a thousand links.
The EU is already rolling out digital ID wallets to 400M people. Airlines are testing customer credentials. And Personal AIs can already book appointments. Our tomorrow is already here. It’s just not yet at scale.
So are you ready?
Yesterday, the business was in control.
Today, the business is more helpful, but they are still calling the shots.
Tomorrow, the customer is going to turn up already equipped.
With their own trust. With their own context. And with the ability to delegate much of the experience to a Personal Agent.
The question for brands is simple. What happens when the customer is better prepared than you are?
You see, the answer isn’t about customer control. It’s about customer readiness. Because the future of CX won’t be defined by the systems inside a company. It will be shaped by how well those systems connect to the ones customers bring with them.
That’s the CX opening. That’s the advantage.
Where the future belongs to the brands that see customers not as problems to manage, but as partners who already hold the keys.
Founder of Customer Futures Ltd, an advisory firm helping businesses seize the opportunities around disruptive and customer-empowering digital products. He writes about the next billion-dollar market category - Empowerment Tech -
at www.customerfutures.com