The $400 Million Lesson from Experience ’26

A note from our Chief Strategy Officer — plus, pictures of puppies.

Experience ’26 felt different.

Not because of the scale. Not because of the production. Not because of the announcements.

It felt different because the industry itself has crossed a line.

Across financial services, hospitality, retail, logistics, automotive and more, leaders are no longer asking how to measure experience better.

They are asking how to help transform their business as experiences are evolving at an ever increasing rate of change.

How to connect experience to revenue.
How to remove structural inefficiency.
How to reduce risk.
How to unify fragmented journeys.
How to adapt to a world of human, hybrid, AI-powered, and soon, agentic experiences.
How to embed intelligence into the operating model itself.

The shift is no longer incremental.

It is structural.

Here are my biggest takeaways.

Experience friction is a financial problem

For many years, CX was structured around measurement. Surveys were deployed. Scores were tracked. Dashboards were reviewed.

Measurement matters. But measurement alone does not change performance.

In many organizations, metrics were a proxy for progress because surveys were the only signal available. Movement in a score was interpreted as improvement. But improvement only happens when the underlying system changes. It doesn’t explain the why, or the how, or the root cause of experience failure or excellence.

Today, experience no longer lives in a single survey response.

It lives in calls, chats, digital sessions, behavioral signals, and operational data across the full journey.

For the first time, we can see the system in motion.
Where it breaks.
Where effort increases.
Where emotion shifts.
Where revenue is exposed.

That was the shift at Experience ’26.

The conversation moved from observing sentiment to addressing structural friction.

Because friction is not abstract.

A failed redemption in an app.
A broken API.
A transfer from chatbot to IVR.
A repeat contact that should never have happened.
A customer who simply does not come back.

Individually, these appear operational. At scale, they are financial.

In our executive keynote, Mark shared the story of a single high value customer whose journey broke across three departments. The digital failure was invisible to the contact center. The contact center failure was invisible to operations. The customer left.

One customer lost is unfortunate.

Twenty thousand customers lost for the same reason is a structural flaw.

At a lifetime value of $20,000 per customer, that is a $400 million problem.

Not a CX issue, a business problem.

That is the difference between score watching and transformation.

The role of modern experience leadership is not to observe sentiment. It is to identify structural friction, trace it to its origin, and remove it systemically.

As I said on stage:

“We are more than the survey people.”

We have to be connectors across silos.
Conductors of the journey.
Architects of systems that did not exist five years ago.
Business leaders who map experience directly to outcomes.

That is what this moment requires.

AI is becoming operational infrastructure

Last year, many organizations were experimenting with generative AI.

This year, the focus has shifted to operational integration.

The question is no longer whether to use AI. It is how to embed it responsibly into daily workflows.

Capabilities like conversational analytics and automated topic discovery lower the barrier to insight. But insight alone does not create value.

Value is created when signals are unified across journeys and tied directly to outcomes:

Revenue growth.
Cost to serve efficiencies.
Risk mitigation.
Operational performance achievement.

When you can quantify the financial impact of friction and launch action within the same environment, experience becomes a management system.

The advantage in 2026 will not belong to the company with the most dashboards.

It will belong to the organization that can consistently close the loop between insight and action.

That requires governance.
Clear ownership.
Defined accountability.

Technology enables the shift.

Leadership operationalizes it.

Alignment is the new advantage

One of the most powerful aspects of Experience ’26 was seeing how organizations are reshaping their internal models.

From the Changemaker panel to the Expy Awards.
From the Customer Advisory Board sessions to MUG roundtables.
From the Partner Summit to the Executive Summit.
From masterclasses and workshops to a product hub that never stopped buzzing.

Everywhere you looked, the conversation had matured.

Leaders from Shipt, Hyatt, Maersk, Verizon Business, Bank of America, Toyota Financial Services, CIBC, and so many more shared how they:

• Elevated experience metrics into company objectives
• Connected feedback directly to revenue and retention
• Embedded intelligence into frontline workflows
• Built executive sponsorship across finance, operations and technology

What stood out was not perfection.

It was alignment.

Experience is no longer being managed as a reporting function.

It is being positioned as a strategic capability.

And the organizations leaning into that shift are moving faster because of it.

Change is built between sessions

Transformation is strategic. It is also deeply human.

Yes, we spent our days debating models. Reviewing use cases. Walking the product hub and seeing new capabilities in action.

But we also created space to connect.

The dog park was one of my favorite stops.

There is something grounding about watching leaders who manage experiences at global organizations sit on the floor for a few minutes and reset.

The Medallia Market brought a different kind of energy. Shopping brands like the Disney Store, Kate Spade, and Vuori. Testing reflexes in the McLaren simulator. Conversations that started in breakout sessions continued over dinner, music, and a lively dance floor.

These moments are not side notes.

They build relationships.
They build trust.
They build the informal networks that make real change possible.

Strategy scales faster when relationships are strong.

Looking ahead

Experience ’26 was not defined by features.

It was defined by direction.

Experience is moving from measurement to management.
From dashboards to decisions.
From insight to institutional change.

The organizations that win in this next chapter will:

• Tie experience directly to revenue, efficiency and risk
• Embed AI into disciplined operating models
• Empower leaders across the enterprise to act on intelligence
• Build accountability into how work gets done

This is a defining moment for our industry.

The opportunity is significant.

And it belongs to the changemakers.