We are on the brink of a digital revolution in consumer experiences. A convergence of multiple forces is compelling organizations to innovate in this area:
Consumers connect digitally, accessing products and services through a range of devices, channels, and platforms. And they now expect seamless service at their moments of need, often seeking curated and personalized experiences to achieve their goals.
A synergy of advancing and emerging technologies is accelerating the transformation of digital experiences — reshaping how firms interact with consumers, streamline operations, and deliver value.
Competition is intensifying. While consumers navigate a “digital sea of sameness,” leading firms leverage cutting-edge technologies and extensive partner ecosystems to swiftly develop and scale innovative products, services, and business models.
Digital Experiences Are Evolving To Become More Human-Centered
Today, we are already witnessing the gradual integration of multiple interaction modes into interfaces, including touch, text, voice, haptics, and gestures. Apps now allow users to use voice commands to ask questions, research products and services, and make payments. Virtual assistants use augmented reality to offer virtual try-ons. Smartwatches use haptic feedback to alert users or share health metrics.
In the future, organizations will leverage AI to further reduce friction in human-computer interactions. AI-powered interfaces, such as chatbots and virtual agents, will actively observe, seek information, learn, and communicate with consumers. This will allow organizations to better understand consumer intent and emotions and generate responses that use appropriate tone, emotion, visual elements, and more. In the short term, conversational interfaces will make digital experiences more natural, intuitive, and accessible. In the longer term, the internet of senses, computer vision, extended reality, and edge AI will create more perceptive and immersive experiences by tracking eye movement, expressions, and gestures and blending multisensory experiences to incorporate touch, taste, and smell.
Digital Experiences Will Evolve Through Three Phases
Over the next decade, emerging technologies will enhance consumer understanding, boost automation, and accelerate the orchestration and delivery of digital experiences. By gaining deeper consumer insights, organizations will be able to:
Dynamically assemble the content and services that consumers need.
Provide actionable suggestions tailored to individual needs.
Act on behalf of consumers — with their permission — to reduce cognitive load and simplify their lives.
As market offerings expand, technologies mature, and consumers increasingly adopt new types of digital experiences, Forrester expects that digital experiences will evolve through three phases. These phases will not occur in strict sequential order; instead, they are interrelated and mutually reinforcing, building upon each other:
Assistive experiences use consumer preferences to help with decision-making. Already today, consumers interact with firms through chatbots and virtual assistants. These interfaces let customers ask questions, get answers, and perform some actions. Firms use data and real-time models to engage consumers with relevant experiences, providing insights, alerts, and suggestions to help them make informed decisions.
Anticipatory experiences leverage consumer context to proactively address their needs. Next, anticipatory experiences will become more common. Consumers will have deeper interactions through multimodal interfaces, sharing more data with firms. These experiences will retain user preferences and behaviors. Organizations will use this data and predictive tools to offer AI-driven insights, helping consumers prepare for events and achieve better outcomes. AI-powered assistants will continuously optimize experiences to proactively meet consumer needs.
Agentic experiences understand and act on consumer intent. Finally, firms will use agentic AI systems for real-time personalization and automation. Consumers will use personal AI agents to refine outputs based on their preferences and goals. Major platforms with broader data access such as Apple and Google will use AI to assemble dynamic cross-brand experiences from modular components. With permission, AI agents will autonomously seek information, learn, adapt, and act on behalf of consumers.
By delivering assistive, anticipatory, and agentic experiences, businesses will be able to create a future where technology seamlessly integrates into our daily lives, empowering consumers in unprecedented ways.
Trust Will Be A Key Factor In Shaping This Future
Brand trust, shaped by the brand promise but also the quality of past interactions, will determine how much data consumers are willing to share for personalized experiences. Additionally, trust in the technology itself, scenarios, and perceived levels of risk will influence the degree of autonomy granted to AI agents and the breadth of service or advice provided.
The pace of change is accelerating — but the fundamentals remain the same. As organizations prepare for the future of experiences, it’s crucial to remember that brand and customer experience are the powerhouse duo driving growth.
Join Us At CX Summit EMEA 2025 To Learn More
To learn more about how to anticipate and prepare for the future of experiences, join us at CX Summit EMEA June 2–4, 2025, in London. I will present new research on the future of digital experiences during my keynote, “Design For The Future Of Experiences.” The Summit brings together leaders in CX, digital, and marketing to explore the future of customer relationships and learn how to build a total experience that aligns brand experience and CX to drive sustainable growth. You can explore the full agenda and register here.
If you’re a Forrester client, stay tuned for upcoming research on the future of digital experiences. Visit my Forrester bio page and click “Follow” to receive notifications. You can also follow me on LinkedIn here. Forrester clients can also schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me to delve deeper into this topic.
