Strategy

Workbooks is betting that plain-English AI agents can help mid-market teams overcome CRM friction faster than enterprise-heavy platforms.

AI won’t fix customer experience if phone systems and CRM platforms don’t share real-time context. Integrating them first gives agents and automation the data needed to route calls faster and personalize service.

As AI becomes embedded across CRM workflows, the challenge in 2026 shifts from adoption to execution, forcing organizations to confront data readiness, platform scale, and human interaction.

Agentic AI is pushing commerce beyond chatbots, requiring brands to rethink discovery, loyalty, and how customer data drives engagement.

Retailers are bracing for a predicted post-holiday surge in returns that could strain customer service teams and CRM-driven support workflows, as refund abuse and rising volumes test response times and loyalty.

With new Accountant and Enterprise Suites, Intuit aims to reduce deployment time, boost productivity, and modernize how mid-market firms manage growth and profitability.

Aurasell is betting that AI-native, fully integrated CRM platforms can replace the fragmented go-to-market stacks that have grown costly, complex, and increasingly ineffective.

Privacy and data trust now define customer loyalty. In this exclusive interview, PwC’s George Korizis explains what brands must do to earn confidence in a privacy-first era.

Voice AI agents are evolving far beyond yesterday’s IVR menus — and for some brands, customers are now saving their AI agent’s number and recommending it to friends like a trusted local service provider.

Retailers are using Leap and Endear to turn physical stores into relationship-building hubs, unifying customer insight across channels and strengthening loyalty through data-driven clienteling and more personalized in-store engagement.

Traditional CRM automation often stops at simple tasks, leading to gaps and handoffs that slow teams down. MelodyArc addresses this by introducing a tiered, non-binary approach to automation that ensures human control is central to the process.

Salesforce used Dreamforce 2025 to do more than launch products. It declared a philosophical shift in how companies will operate, introducing what Marc Benioff calls the agentic enterprise.

AI spend is soaring, yet results lag. Leaders now face the real challenge: turning ambition into ROI through disciplined execution, governance, and customer trust.

Highspot’s latest report uncovers why companies pouring resources into AI still struggle to improve sales performance. The findings reveal that true success depends on aligning people, process, and technology to close the widening go-to-market execution gap.