Customer service has always been a reflection of the technology that powers it. Call centers scaled when phones became ubiquitous. Help desks expanded with email. Live chat rose alongside the modern web. Now, we’re at the beginning of another shift that will redefine not just how service is delivered, but who owns the customer experience itself.
To understand how customer service will evolve over the next year, don’t start with scripts, staffing models, or even AI tooling. Start with data. More specifically, start with where data flows, who controls it, and how it’s increasingly shaping customer experiences before a brand ever gets the chance to engage.
What’s happening with AI and shopping experiences now?
Last year marked a turning point: it heralded the widespread, mainstream adoption of general-purpose AI agents like Chat GPT, Gemini, and Claude. For the first time, consumers could rely on these agents not just to answer questions but to reason, recommend, and act. These agents became a concierge for consumer curiosity; from how to fix something to which brand to trust. Questions that once landed on search engines, support pages, or call centers were increasingly answered with AI.
Today even, there are certain AI tools shoppers can use that even help them decide what to buy. For example, this week, OpenAI launched new agentic shopping experiences powered by the Agentic Commerce Protocol. This marks a shift towards more concierge-style experiences where platforms like OpenAI are placing more emphasis on product discovery and helping consumers connect with brands. For brands, OpenAI is like a mutual friend making an introduction that is trusted and relevant. However, while AI can facilitate this brand and customer introduction, it doesn’t own their relationship.
From general-purpose AI to brand-specific AI
If 2025 was the year of the general-purpose agent, 2026 is the year every business will deploy a brand-specific agent. If ChatGPT is making the customer introduction to a brand - like a mutual friend - these brand-specific agents are highly skilled and brand trained in-store associates that are ready to warmly receive customers coming from these AI platforms. General AI is only as good as the public data it can access. But the moments that matter most in customer service - think order status, returns, preferences, policies, and loyalty - live inside a brand’s own systems. That’s where brand-specific AI agents come in.
Consumers want accuracy, context, and a voice that reflects the brand they’re engaging with. Consumers don’t want the default personality or generic answers of a universal AI assistant. As expectations rise, brands will realize that outsourcing their voice entirely is a liability.
So, what’s next?
We’ve seen this pattern before. At first, some companies had websites. Then, very quickly, every company needed one. Then, as mobile technology advanced, so too did consumer user behavior for where and when they purchase. Over time, there has been a clear shift from browsing and buying on desktops to taking that experience almost entirely to mobile devices and apps.
AI agents will follow the same trajectory but on a compressed timeline. By the time we reach the holiday season, it will feel normal to land on a brand’s website and be greeted by a brand-specific agent that guides consumer discovery and resolves issues in real time. Search engine AI agents - like Gemini - won’t rely solely on scraping the web for answers. Instead, they’ll begin speaking directly to the AI agents that represent individual brands. Customer service will move from human-to-AI interactions to agent-to-agent conversations; where authoritative, real-time brand data is exchanged instantly.
Agent-to-agent conversations are crucial for AEO. But the real transformation comes from the data source. Brands that have access to a centralized data source with full context is key to delivering amazing experiences for customers as they spend time on a brand’s website. While Agentic Commerce Protocol (ACP) improves the consumer user experience for learning about products, what happens next when consumers go direct with a brand to interact and buy is what generates the data that forges a lasting relationship.
This is why what Klaviyo is building matters.
Klaviyo is laying the foundation for a customer agent platform designed to represent brands in this future. From launching our own ChatGPT app and MCP server, to strategic partnerships with Google and Shopify; we’re creating a future where a brand’s AI agent doesn’t just talk to customers, but talks to other AI systems on a brand’s behalf. When agent-to-agent interactions become the norm; brands with a trusted, data-rich customer agent will have a structural advantage.
For marketers and customer experience leaders, the lesson is clear. If AI platforms are where customers spend an increasing amount of their time, brands must invest to show up. It’s not just about having access to data; it’s also about investing in a highly trained and highly discoverable agent that can engage with customers wherever they act. While other companies have data siloed everywhere, Klaviyo orients data and the customer at the center of every experience and helps brands show up in the right places at the right times.
The future of customer service isn’t just service and marketing. And it won’t be defined by faster replies or better bots. It will be defined by who controls the data behind the conversation and who is prepared when the agents start talking to each other.
