Executive Summary
Key Takeaways
Artificial intelligence (AI) has shifted customer experience management (CXM) from rules-based workflows and retrospective analysis to real-time decisioning and orchestration embedded across the customer lifecycle. Earlier CXM systems captured interaction data but lacked the ability to interpret intent or coordinate actions dynamically across channels. As customer behavior became more fragmented, enterprises required systems that could synthesize data and act on it in context. AI-enabled CXM platforms now emphasize continuous journey adaptation, predictive guidance and automated execution to influence outcomes.
Software Provider Summary
The ISG Buyers Guide™ for AI Customer Experience Management evaluates 28 software providers offering products supporting AI-driven analytics, journey orchestration and customer interaction optimization. The research ranked the top three overall leaders as Salesforce, NiCE and Oracle. Providers were classified using weighted performance in Product Experience and Customer Experience for ISG quadrant placement. Adobe, Genesys, Microsoft, NiCE, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Sprinklr, Talkdesk, Verint, Zendesk and Zoho were rated as Exemplary, with Freshworks rated as Innovative. CSG was rated as Assurance; and Braze, Emplifi, Gainsight, Glassbox, HubSpot, Intercom, Medallia, MoEngage, Netcore, Nextiva, Qualtrics, SAS and SugarCRM were rated as Merit.
Product Experience Insights
Product Experience, representing 80% of the evaluation, focuses on Capability (40%) and Platform (40%), which includes adaptability, manageability, reliability and usability. Salesforce, NiCE and Oracle achieved the highest performance as Leaders in this category, supported by broad AI-enabled capability coverage across interaction handling and journey management and scalable platform architecture designed for integration and governance. Leaders demonstrated enterprise-grade platform capabilities across varied roles and contexts.
Customer Experience Value
Customer Experience, representing 20% of the evaluation, focuses on validation and TCO/ROI. ServiceNow, Salesforce and NiCE were the Leaders in this category, showing strong customer advocacy and clear investment in success outcomes. Providers with lower performance often lacked publicly available customer validation or failed to demonstrate structured ROI measurement and proactive lifecycle engagement.
Strategic Recommendations
Prioritize platforms that embed AI directly into workflows for real-time decisioning and orchestration across the customer lifecycle. Ensure access to unified, governed data to support reliable AI outputs and consistent context across interactions. Evaluate knowledge management and content governance as critical dependencies for effective AI-driven engagement. Align AI capabilities with operational processes and governance to ensure transparency, control and measurable outcomes.
The Findings
The software providers and products evaluated in this research offer product and customer experiences, but not every feature is equally valuable to every enterprise or is needed to support the relevant business processes and use cases. Moreover, having too many product capabilities may be a negative factor for an enterprise if it introduces unnecessary complexity. Nonetheless, you may decide that a more comprehensive set of capabilities is important and meets your enterprise’s requirements.
An effective customer relationship with a software provider is vital to the success of any investment. The overall customer experience and the full lifecycle of engagement play a key role in ensuring satisfaction and long-term success. Providers with dedicated customer leadership, such as chief customer officers, tend to invest more deeply in these relationships and prioritize customer outcomes in line with TCO and ROI expectations. It is equally important that this commitment to customer success is evident throughout the provider’s website, the buying process and the customer journey.
Overall Scoring of Software Providers Across Categories
The research finds Salesforce atop the list, followed by NiCE and Oracle. Providers that place in the top three of a category earn the designation of Leader. Salesforce has done so in five categories; NiCE in four; Oracle in three; ServiceNow in two; and Sprinklr in one category.
The quadrant chart below presents ratings for Product Experience and Customer Experience on the x- and y-axes, respectively, to visually classify software providers. Those providers whose Product Experience has above-median weighted performance on the axis, in aggregate across the two product categories, place farther to the right. The performance and weighting for the Customer Experience category determine placement on the vertical axis. In short, software providers that place closer to the upper-right on this chart performed better than those closer to the lower-left.The research categorizes and rates software providers into one of four categories: Assurance, Exemplary, Merit or Innovative. Placement represents the software providers’ weighted performance in meeting the requirements of product and customer experience.
Exemplary: This rating (upper right) applies to those providers that performed above the median on Product and Customer Experience requirements. The providers rated Exemplary are: Adobe, Genesys, Microsoft, NiCE, Oracle, Salesforce, SAP, ServiceNow, Sprinklr, Talkdesk, Verint, Zendesk and Zoho.
Innovative: This rating (lower right) applies to those that performed above median in Product Experience but not in Customer Experience. The provider rated Innovative is: Freshworks.
Assurance: This rating (upper left) applies to those that performed above median in Customer Experience but not in Product Experience. The provider rated Assurance is: CSG.
Merit: This rating (lower left) applies to those that did not surpass the median in Customer or Product Experience. The providers rated Merit are: Braze, Emplifi, Gainsight, Glassbox, HubSpot, Intercom, Medallia, MoEngage, Netcore, Nextiva, Qualtrics, SAS and SugarCRM.
We advise enterprises to use this research as a supplement to their own evaluations, recognizing that ratings or rankings do not solely represent a provider’s value nor indicate universal suitability of a set of products.
