B2C marketing leaders face a familiar but intensifying challenge: delivering profitable growth while navigating monumental shifts in how consumers discover, evaluate, and engage with brands. AI is reshaping every step of the journey — from zero-click discovery to agent-mediated commerce — while rising consumer skepticism makes trust harder to earn and easier to lose.
At CX Forum West, Forrester brings these forces together under a single imperative: Build the experience AI can’t. For marketing leaders, that means strengthening the human foundations of brand, loyalty, and trust — while using AI responsibly to scale relevance, speed, and efficiency.
Here are 10 can’t-miss experiences designed specifically for marketing leaders who want to translate disruption into durable advantage.
1. Anchor Your Strategy In The Keynote Sessions
The Forum keynotes lay the intellectual foundation for the rest of the event. At their core, they examine an increasingly urgent challenge: how to build trustworthy, human-centered experiences that deliver on the brand promise and inspire loyalty, particularly in the AI era.
Specifically, the keynotes show how employee belief and engagement directly influence brand delivery and customer experience; why consumer distrust is becoming the default as AI-generated content blurs the line between what’s real and what’s fabricated; and how AI initiatives fail when leaders bolt them onto systems and strategies never designed for trust or coherence. The underlying message is that marketing leaders who don’t intentionally design for trust, alignment, and consistency will find those gaps exposed faster and, more visibly, by AI.
2. Witness The Evolution Of Experience Measurement
At CX Forum West, you’ll be among the first to see the next iteration of Forrester’s Total Experience Score. The total experience framework, introduced last year, is the mechanism through which brand promises actually show up for consumers.
This year, the Total Experience Score is expanding to incorporate employee experience (EX) through the new EX Index. You’ll see how brand, customer, and employee experience now come together in a unified measurement model and what that means for prioritization, investment decisions, and long-term growth.
Immediately after Tuesday morning’s keynote, stay for the Total Experience Honor, where Forrester recognizes organizations that are setting the standard for unified, high-impact experiences.
3. Build AI Readiness Into How You Lead — Not Just How You Invest
AI readiness is less about tools and more about leadership. The deep-dive session, “Improve Your People’s AI And Innovation Readiness With Forrester’s AIQ,” helps B2C marketing leaders assess whether their teams — and their own decision-making — are truly prepared to use AI responsibly and effectively. The updated AIQ (artificial intelligence quotient) tool looks beyond training to surface gaps in understanding, confidence, and risk awareness that often stall progress or create brand risk.
That perspective is reinforced in “Be A Trusted Human Leader In An AI World,” which focuses on how trust and influence shape AI outcomes long before technology is deployed. Together, these sessions make a clear point: For B2C marketers navigating consumer skepticism and rapid change, AI readiness is a prerequisite for scale, not something to address after the fact.
4. Rethink Discovery In A Zero-Click World
AI-integrated search is transforming how consumers discover, evaluate, and buy — often without ever visiting a brand website. The session “How To Grow Your Brand’s Visibility Across Answer Engines” breaks down what this shift means for marketing and CX strategies.
B2C leaders will learn why answer engines, creator ecosystems, and AI-powered recommendations now shape demand earlier and less visibly than traditional channels. This session is essential for marketers rethinking content, social presence, and visibility in an answer engine-led environment.
5. Get Hands-On With Personalization Strategy
Consumers want personalized experiences — provided that they’re helpful, not intrusive. The workshop “Ensure Your Consumer Personalization Vision Is 20/20” helps leaders move toward an organizationwide personalization strategy that’s grounded in the customer and accounts for customer needs, business objectives, tactics, and KPIs. (Find a full list of our analyst-led, hands-on workshops here.)
6. Prepare For AI Agents As A New Target Audience
AI agents are beginning to influence discovery, consideration, and purchase, creating a new audience that marketing leaders must account for. Sessions such as “Prepare For AI Agents As Your New Target Audience” and “Ready, Set, Agentic: How Real Companies Deploy AI With Intent” explore what this shift means for experience design, brand visibility, and loyalty.
B2C marketers will gain practical insight into balancing human emotion with machine logic — and how agentic experiences change who you’re really marketing to.
7. Get One-On-One Advice From Forrester Analysts
For many attendees, one-on-one meetings with Forrester analysts are among the most valuable parts of our events. These private 20-minute conversations let you go beyond best practices to discuss real constraints, pressure-test new approaches, and get perspective grounded in cross-industry research and practitioner experience.
To get the most value, come with a specific question or decision in mind — and be ready to challenge your thinking, not just seek validation. One-on-ones fill up quickly; registrants will be notified shortly before the event when sign-ups open.
8. Build Your Network
Attendance at CX Forum West is intentionally capped to facilitate meaningful connection. The smaller size makes it easier to access Forrester analysts and meet peers facing similar challenges to what you’re facing.
Our special programs, including the invite-only Executive Leadership Exchange, Future Leaders Program, and Women’s Leadership Breakfast, create even more focused environments for sharing perspectives.
9. See The Latest Marketing And CX Tech In Action
CX Forum West also offers a chance to explore the latest technology shaping modern customer interactions. Stroll through the Marketplace to discover platforms spanning contact center intelligence, conversation analytics, AI-powered engagement, and experience measurement — solutions that increasingly influence how B2C marketers deliver consistency, responsiveness, and trust across the customer lifecycle. While many lean CX-first, these technologies sit closer than ever to marketing’s remit as AI blurs traditional boundaries between service, engagement, and brand experience.
10. Experience San Francisco!
This year’s Forum takes place in one of the world’s most influential innovation hubs. Whether you’re walking between sessions, grabbing coffee with peers, or heading out after the day wraps, San Francisco’s creative energy is part of the experience — and a fitting backdrop for conversations about the future of CX. (Read our recommendations for around the venue.)
Ready to turn strategy into execution? We can’t wait to see you in San Francisco.
Register now if you haven’t already — and start planning how you’ll build the experience AI can’t.
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