Forrester

Like the proverbial frog that doesn’t feel the water becoming increasingly hotter, many North American brands are inching into more treacherous positions with their customers’ loyalty as measured by Forrester’s Customer Experience Index (CX Index™) rankings. This year’s just-released results show that US and Canada consumer perceptions of CX quality have dropped for a fourth consecutive year and now sit at a new all-time low. Forrester’s CX Index methodology measures how well a brand’s CX strengthens the loyalty of its customers. Specifically, it evaluates the ease, effectiveness, and emotional components of customers’ interactions with a brand. This year, we analyzed more than 275,000 customers’ perceptions of 469 brands across 12 industries and 13 countries. And for the first time this year, we also published Brand Experience Index (BX Index™) rankings as well as introducing the Total Experience Score — which combines BX and CX — for these brands. Persistent Challenges Plague CX Quality In North America In the US, 25% of the brands we evaluated in 2024 and 2025 had statistically significant losses while only 7% improved. The result in Canada was fairly similar: 18% of brands declined and just 1% improved. The remainder of the brands fared around the same as they did last year although, concerningly, one-quarter of the North American brands that declined in 2025 also fell in 2024. While some of the factors pulling scores down are specific to this year (e.g., customers struggling to find value in a particularly tumultuous economic environment), many remain unchanged from last year. These include a drop in employee experience, a decreased focus on customer obsession, and disappointing implementations of potentially game-changing technology (including AI). Also contributing is the persistent gap between executives’ perception of the quality of their CX and how customers perceive their experiences. This misalignment diminishes the focus that organizations need to maintain on delivering easy, effective, and emotionally positive experiences. A Mixed Picture Abroad And A Silver Lining In Europe Outside of North America, this year’s results are uneven. In Asia Pacific — where we looked at brands in Australia, Singapore, and India — the scores for 37% of brands fell between 2024 and 2025 while just 5% rose. (The one industry that improved in the region was Singapore’s investment firm industry.) Europe was the only region where brands registering gains outnumbered those showing declines. Across the region, 7% of brands we evaluated in 2024 and 2025 improved their scores this year while 2% declined. The Time Is Now To Turn Around CX By and large, the shifts in CX scores were not dramatic. Most customers feel slightly less positive and, instead, more neutral about their experiences. So while the water is getting a little hotter, brands still have opportunities to reverse the trend. But given the multiyear decline we’re seeing, brands must act now — before decaying perceptions reach a boiling point and start significantly impacting customer loyalty behaviors. If you’re a Forrester client, read the full report with detailed breakdowns by brand, country, and industry. source

La technologie émergente n’est pas seulement en pleine accélération : elle se diversifie et progresse dans de nouvelles directions, plus risquées, mais aussi plus puissantes. L’année dernière, dans notre classement des 10 principales technologies émergentes, nous avions scindé l’intelligence artificielle générative en deux : d’un côté le langage et de l’autre, le contenu visuel. Nous estimons que cette distinction reste valable pour 2025. Toutefois, les calendriers évoluent. L’IA générative pour le langage est déjà une réalité, alors que l’IA générative pour le contenu visuel transformera à terme les expériences numériques — mais pas du jour au lendemain. Le reste du classement 2025 reflète le rythme effréné de l’innovation et des technologies émergentes stratégiques, y compris des évolutions majeures dans les domaines de l’automatisation, de l’innovation des données et de l’IA incarnée. Ci-dessous, nous mettons en avant trois évolutions majeures de notre classement des technologies émergentes 2025 – Ainsi qu’une grande vérité qui reste inchangée. Pour découvrir l’analyse complète des 10 technologies émergentes stratégiques, visionnez le replay de notre webinaire (en anglais). IA agentique : l’automatisation a désormais un cerveau (et un message d’avertissement) En 2020, Forrester introduisait le concept d’agents intelligents. Depuis, nous avons suivi de très près l’évolution de l’automatisation permise par  l’IA. L’année dernière, nous avions également affiné cette notion en parlant d’« agents IA » (Agentic IA). Cependant, en 2025, nous allons encore plus loin : les technologies d’Agentic AI sont une catégorie bien distincte de technologies émergentes. Pourquoi ? Parce qu’une toute nouvelle vague d’architectures et d’outils d’orchestration rend les agents IA beaucoup plus flexibles et performants… mais aussi plus imprévisibles. Ces technologies permettent à l’automatisation de prendre en charge des tâches ouvertes, d’adapter ses réactions et de fonctionner de manière autonome. Ceci ouvre de nouvelles perspectives pour les entreprises… mais aussi de nouveaux risques. Il est essentiel d’instaurer des limites claires, avec des cadres de gouvernance et des modèles de confiance, en parallèle de l’évolution de ces avancées. Nous avons déjà publié un rapport essentiel sur cette technologie (accès client requis). Données synthétiques : un outil de protection de la vie privée devenu levier de performance 42 % des entreprises déclarent déjà utiliser des données synthétiques comme technologie de préservation de la confidentialité. Mais leur véritable potentiel est actuellement en train de se préciser. C’est ce qui les propulse dans notre top 10 des technologies émergentes 2025. Bien au-delà de leur rôle dans la réduction des données personnelles et l’atténuation des biais, les données synthétiques peuvent constituer très rapidement un outil essentiel pour l’entraînement et l’ajustement des modèles fondamentaux. Les entreprises les utilisent notamment pour créer des jeux de données de haute fidélité, lorsque les données réelles sont limitées ou indisponibles, ou pour tester la robustesse du comportement des IA. Mais aussi pour garantir l’équité à grande échelle. Le résultat ? Une voie plus solide vers l’IA responsable — et un nouveau levier d’innovation. Robots humanoïdes : de l’usine à la première ligne Les robots humanoïdes étaient absents de notre top 20 l’an dernier. Cette année, ils intègrent le top 10 des technologies émergentes stratégiques. Comment l’expliquer ? Plusieurs facteurs ont convergé en 2025 : la baisse des coûts des composants, les progrès en dextérité robotique et l’évolution rapide de l’IA conversationnelle. Avec tous ces éléments, les robots à forme humaine sont devenus suffisamment performants pour des missions de première ligne dans de nombreux secteurs. Des entrepôts aux restaurants, en passant par les soins apportés aux personnes âgées ou la sécurité, les cas d’usage se multiplient, très rapidement. Si l’émergence se confirme, les robots humanoïdes pourraient profondément transformer de nombreuses industries de services physiques d’ici 2030. La robotique ne se limite plus à l’automatisation : elle couvre désormais la présence, l’interaction et l’incarnation. Ce qui ne change pas en 2025 : la confiance reste prioritaire Notre message essentiel de l’an dernier reste valable en 2025. Malgré une volatilité encore accrue cette année, pour anticiper les innovations de demain, les responsables technologiques doivent dès aujourd’hui investir dans des fondations technologiques fiables et sécurisées. L’innovation technologique se nourrit de la vitesse, mais c’est bien la confiance qui rend possible le déploiement à plus large échelle.   source

According to Forrester’s Security Survey, 2025, IT environment complexity, limited visibility, and alert fatigue are some of the most common information security challenges organizations face. Your Zero Trust strategy, no matter how complex, expensive, “compliant,” and AI driven, will remain plagued by mediocrity if those issues go unaddressed. While we obsess over frameworks and compliance checkboxes, threat actors are studying our environments like seasoned cartographers, mapping every weakness and opportunity. Every misconfiguration, forgotten asset, and rigid ill-fitting policy becomes a valuable asset on the path to compromise, and adapting this approach and thinking like an adversary is essential to elevating security and building resilience. Insecure environments share similar characteristics: organizational opacity, operational friction, and mountains of technical debt. Beyond their negative operational implications, they’re what attackers count on to succeed. Security pros need to be aware that: Low visibility creates threat incubators. While you’re trying to inventory assets with spreadsheets and aging configuration management databases (CMDBs), attackers are already three steps ahead and have effective techniques to inventory assets you have no idea exist. They thrive in environments where shadow IT runs rampant, trust relationships go undocumented, and assets slip through the cracks. You can’t protect what you can’t see, and threat actors know this better than anyone. Static security models are predictably brittle. That firewall rule from 2019? The access policy riddled with “emergency exceptions”? Attackers see these rigid, unchanging patterns as roadmaps. Traditional network controls that rely on easily forgeable values like MAC addresses and extended detection and response (EDR) presence offer little protection against sophisticated spoofing techniques. While it may meet the standard compliance requirements, the illusion of security is a gift to creative attackers. Operational friction amplifies attack opportunities. Three teams, two change advisory boards, five signoffs, and three days to approve a simple transport layer security (TLS) upgrade don’t tell an attacker you have good processes, governance, or bureaucracy; they instead communicate exploit deployment windows. While your security operations center (SOC) analyst spends 30 minutes investigating a low-priority alert, lateral movement is already happening. Technical debt creates treasure maps for attackers. That legacy Java application that’s “isolated” but actually reachable from your cloud environment because of a misconfigured web application running an aging database is a lateral movement highway and a key ingredient of getting remote code execution (RCE) and become an administrator. Technical debt inherently creates undocumented workarounds and implied trust relationships, exactly the kind of complexity that makes attackers’ jobs easier. The solution isn’t more controls. It’s systematic testing through an attacker’s lens that reveals whether your Zero Trust implementation actually prevents compromise. This means: Weekly automated validation that verifies policy effectiveness, not just policy existence. Production-mirrored testing environments where you can safely simulate real attack patterns. Scenario-based testing that chains together authentication, privilege escalation, and monitoring validation. Continuous asset discovery to catch unauthorized instances, orphaned service principals, and exposed APIs before attackers do. Offensive security used as an optimization engine that turns security findings into operational improvements. Thinking like an attacker doesn’t just improve your security posture; it can also improve operations. When your red team discovers unmonitored EC2 instances running outdated software, it presents an opportunity to, of course, fix a gap, but also one to consolidate workloads, eliminate waste, and potentially reduce cloud spend. By framing security improvements as operational efficiency gains, you speak directly to developer and IT incentives: speed, shipping, and efficiency. Start by deploying asset discovery tools to catch rogue instances, using identity mapping to follow trust relationships that create privilege escalation paths, and testing segmentation by attempting lateral movement. By validating your controls against attacker techniques, every successful attack chain in your testing environment becomes a blueprint for both security enhancement and operational streamlining. Zero Trust success requires more than good intentions and compliance frameworks. It demands a fundamental shift from defensive thinking to adversarial validation, creating resilient operations that can withstand sophisticated threats while maintaining business velocity. Our new report, Build Resilience With Zero Trust: Think Like A Threat Actor, provides the tactical guidance and testing frameworks you need to validate your controls through an attacker’s lens and transform your Zero Trust strategy from theoretical framework to proven resilience. Let’s Connect Forrester clients can schedule an inquiry or guidance session with me to do a deeper dive on how to use offensive security testing to improve the resilience of your infrastructure. source

During its latest online briefing on digital sovereignty, Microsoft confirmed that customers are requesting more details on the company’s digital sovereignty posture. Given the increasingly volatile geopolitical environment, these requests are now more focused, more urgent, and more frequent than in the past. Consequently, Microsoft has now updated its sovereign cloud offerings to include details for: 1) Sovereign Public Cloud; 2) Sovereign Private Cloud; and 3) National Partner Cloud. While European customers of late have been more vocal about their digital sovereignty needs, it’s not just Europe where Microsoft is evolving its digital sovereignty offerings. For example, Microsoft has offered a National Partner Cloud in China via 21Vianet for over 10 years and Sovereign Public Cloud in Australia on the Azure Protected level Cloud since 2018. But with the EU in particular seeking more independence from the US, Microsoft has now clarified and formalized its offerings specifically for the EU market. Here is what international Microsoft customers should know and how these three different options compare to its most direct competitors. Sovereign Public Cloud What it is: This is an update to Microsoft Cloud for Sovereignty and will be accessible through all of Microsoft’s existing data center regions across Europe, serving EU customers using services like Microsoft Azure, Microsoft 365, Microsoft Security, and Power Platform. What it does: The sovereign public cloud ensures that customer data remains within Europe and only European nationals will be responsible for the operations. Customers will manage access whilst retaining control over encryption. How it compares: On the upside, this capability is available for all workloads hosted in Microsoft’s onshore data centers and does not require any data migration. On the downside, the sovereign public cloud from Microsoft is not a fully physically and logically separated public cloud environment like the one that AWS announced it will launch by the end of 2025. As such, it will not grant a “single vendor multicloud” deployment option, mixing sovereign and nonsovereign physically and logically separated environments. Important to note: It is worth remembering that all US hyperscalers are still subject to US laws and that the risk of cloud services suspension, though remote, is material. For this remote eventuality, Microsoft is working on a new structure that will include the development of a software code repository in Switzerland. Furthermore, Microsoft plans to have a series of companies — other providers — that would have the screening license to be able to provide continued cloud services in this remote scenario. Sovereign Private Cloud What it is: Through this offering, Microsoft will provide a new sovereign private cloud to support critical collaboration, communication, and virtualization services workloads on Azure Local. What it does: This solution integrates Microsoft 365 Local, which Microsoft recently announced, with Azure Local, providing capabilities for hybrid and air-gapped environments to meet customers’ resiliency and business continuity requirements for critical services. How it compares: This is an important step forward for Microsoft’s customers who need that extra level of assurance for running specific infrastructure and capabilities on their premises under their own full control. However, the private cloud market is not short of sovereign options. These range from private cloud environments implemented with the help of service providers to the standard offerings of local private cloud vendors. This is an entirely different competitive landscape where security and sovereignty requirements play a different role versus the completeness of the offering. Important to note: As of today, Microsoft’s sovereign private cloud ensures regulatory compliance and low-latency performance in air-gapped environments. Microsoft sees it as a complement to the public cloud scenario and not necessarily as a full-feature capability compared with the public cloud offerings. National Partner Cloud What it is: National partners are government-approved local operators independent from Microsoft. In France, for example, there is an agreement with Blue (a joint venture between Capgemini and Orange) to operate a cloud de confiance for the French public sector and critical infrastructure providers. This is designed to meet the French SecNum cloud requirements. In Germany, meanwhile, there is an agreement with Delos Cloud, an SAP subsidiary, to operate a sovereign cloud for the German public sector that’s designed to meet the German government’s cloud requirements. In China, Azure works with 21Vianet. What it does: These environments are very specific to the compliance standards and criteria of the public sector and critical infrastructure. In France and Germany, national partner clouds offer comprehensive capabilities of Microsoft 365 as well as Microsoft Azure in independently owned and operated infrastructure settings. In the case of national partner clouds, all updates to the cloud are audited and auditable by the operator of the cloud. How it compares: The National Partner Cloud competes with other provider offerings catering to the public sector. Notable offerings in this space include Oracle’s Government Cloud and Oracle Alloy (operated and customized by partners), as is the case for the New Zealand Sovereign Cloud offering from TEAM IM known as TEAM Cloud. In China, AWS works with Sinnet for Beijing Region and NWCD for Ningxia Region. Important to note: National Partner Cloud is very market specific, which does represent a hurdle in countries where smaller scale does not promote these investments or where the cloud market is not yet as developed as in France or Germany. Furthermore, it does require a local partner like Blue or Delos in place, which creates a strong dependency on third-party capabilities. In China, working with a local partner is a requirement as long as a foreign cloud vendor wants to provide services, whether it’s for SOEs, private sectors, or consumers. Reach out to Forrester to schedule an inquiry or guidance to discuss your sovereign cloud initiatives or to dig into these recent announcements. source

Mounting geopolitical pressures have made digital sovereignty an everyday talking point as organizations and individuals seek more autonomy from foreign government dependency and potential influence. While realistically there won’t be a brand-new sovereign tech market, we’re witnessing the emergence of new sovereign options and technology choices that will shape a new sovereign tech landscape in incremental steps over the next 5–10 years. Recent indications of this changing landscape became evident as: A German state turns its back to Microsoft’s suite. In less than three months, the majority of civil servants, police officers, and judges in the German state of Schleswig-Holstein will stop using Microsoft’s software for work. Instead, the state will adopt open-source alternatives to regain control over data storage and ensure digital sovereignty. During the first phase, Microsoft Word and Excel will be replaced by LibreOffice, while Open-Xchange will replace Outlook for managing emails and calendars. Denmark dumps Microsoft Office and Windows for LibreOffice and Linux. Caroline Stage Olsen, Denmark’s Minister for Digital Affiars, has announced that the Danish government will start moving away from Microsoft Office to LibreOffice. It’s not because open source is better but because Denmark wants to claim its digital sovereignty and independence from the US. ESA seeks funding for its European “security and resilience” satellite program. The European Space Agency (ESA) has announced plans to request funding for a new European satellite system focused on “security and resilience.” A standout feature of this system will be its significantly improved temporal resolution compared to satellites currently operated by individual European countries. In a similar effort, the US National Reconnaissance Office, in collaboration with SpaceX and Northrop Grumman, has launched over 200 satellites in just two years. ESA has previously highlighted “rapid and resilient crisis response” as one of its top three priorities for accelerated development. Oracle and G42 promote AI sovereignty in UAE. The Abu Dhabi-based holding company G42, specializing in the development of AI, has announced its intention to create Stargate UAE, a next-generation computing infrastructure that will be built in the 5-gigawatt UAE-US AI campus in Abu Dhabi. A 1-gigawatt cluster will be built by G42 and operated by Oracle and OpenAI. Other project partners include Cisco, NVIDIA, and SoftBank Group. The project aims to promote AI sovereignty in the country, despite the involvement of many foreign players. AWS announces its next regional implementation of Landing Zone Accelerator. The next regional implementation of Landing Zone Accelerator on AWS will support customers with workloads in Germany. The C5-ready Landing Zone Accelerator will be available to AWS’s customers in Q3 2025, and the regional implementations will also be available in AWS European Sovereign Cloud at launch. The AWS EU sovereign cloud will be a logically and physically isolated infrastructure to serve European clients with digital sovereignty requirements. It will also allow a single vendor multicloud model, as clients will be able to leverage the AWS commercial cloud and the EU sovereign cloud as two different deployments at the same time. If you’re a Forrester client and want to learn more about digital sovereignty developments, schedule an inquiry or guidance session and we can discuss more about your sovereign AI, cloud, network, and software initiatives. source

Fujitsu’s Executive Analyst Day in Santa Clara, California, sparked conversations with technologists and business leaders that helped attendees learn about the state of their business and products/services. Topics Covered Discussion of Fujitsu’s corporate strategy and how it has performed Discussion of Fujitsu’s research and commercialization of its technology Discussion of Fujitsu’s AI initiatives, driving both internal and external innovation and adoption Discussion of the history of Fujitsu’s network business, network market trends, the impact of AI, and how the company is addressing these opportunities Discussion of Fujitsu’s Uvance business model and its competitive advantages Discussion of Fujitsu’s alliances, their importance, and what it means for customers Discussion of the services-only business approach in North America and focus areas Key Differentiators At the Fujitsu event, we saw a few key differentiators from others in the market: Development of a Japanese LLM in partnership with Cohere The development of a large language model (LLM) specific to Japan shows Fujitsu’s capabilities in terms of regionalization and AI sovereignty A deliberate pace on AI ambitions Fujitsu is addressing the AI technologies that it sees as important, with a plan for research to teach the business what is possible and productization to provide the right level of capability to customers A services-only focus in North America Fujitsu providing only services in North America makes sense in terms of directing its efforts into what provides both ROI and growth, but this will all take time to see the benefits. Its consulting-led transformation capabilities include AI/ML (including generative AI), data analytics, cloud modernization, and intelligent ERP systems, leveraging platforms such as SAP, ServiceNow, and Fujitsu’s DI PaaS framework. Fujitsu North America is also focused on key industries, such as the public sector, manufacturing, and retail. If you have any questions about Fujitsu or how its solutions address your needs, please submit an inquiry request or reach out to your account team. source

Cloud has become the cornerstone of healthcare’s digital transformation. In 2025, it’s no longer a question of whether healthcare organizations (HCOs) should adopt cloud — but rather how they can use it to solve their most pressing challenges. An average of 20% of the industry’s x86 server OS instances now run in the public cloud. HCOs are embracing cloud for its agility, scalability, and ability to support innovation at speed. But while cloud adoption is accelerating, it’s not a cure-all. Healthcare still faces deep-rooted issues: clinician burnout, staffing shortages, medical deserts, and a fragile patient experience. These challenges have only intensified over time. Still, new innovations and regulations have helped move the healthcare industry forward in cloud strategies. A few of these are as follows: Cloud security is a key driver and major hurdle. While the multitenancy in the cloud was an early concern, it has since come to be viewed by many as a benefit, as it decreased the risk of cyber attacks. Still, uncertainty remains. HCOs are prime targets for cybercriminals due to the high value of patient data. Multicloud implementation may obscure data visibility, user activity, and system vulnerabilities due to abstraction layers that sit atop multiple clouds. As such, HCOs are employing Zero Trust principles and are beholden to other regulations such as AES-256 for encryption and SHA-256 for data integrity. Interoperability is far from coming to fruition, but standards and industry clouds are helping. The Trusted Exchange Framework and Common Agreement (TEFCA), a cloud-based health exchange network — along with other healthcare data networks and FHIR standard adoption — is advancing interoperability. In the future, HCOs will modernize classic enterprise apps for healthcare via industry SaaS (i.e., CRM, ERP, EHRs) and de-risk public cloud migration by ascribing to specialized infrastructure that is certified as compliant for healthcare. GE HealthCare just announced its Genesis portfolio, which will facilitate interoperability through centralized patient data storage and access. Cloud AI services are powering engagement. IoT devices, edge computing, network infrastructure, and cloud services enhance asset management and enable a wider range of remote engagement. Edge, combined with wireless infrastructure such as Wi-Fi and 5G, also enables higher efficiency to help centralized systems for storing and transferring patient files. Microsoft Dragon Copilot recently introduced the first AI assistance for clinical workflows. Among its capabilities, clinicians can automate tasks such as making conversational orders, composing clinical evidence summaries, writing referral letters, and summarizing patient visits, all in one centralized workspace. As healthcare continues its digital evolution, cloud’s role as a strategic engine driving transformation will continue to grow. While challenges such as security, interoperability, and clinician burnout persist, the momentum behind cloud adoption is undeniable. With the rise of Zero Trust architectures, industry-specific SaaS, and edge-powered engagement, healthcare organizations are not just adapting — they’re reimagining how care is delivered, accessed, and secured. If you’d like to learn more, read our reports, The State Of Cloud In Healthcare, 2025, and Best Practices For Healthcare In Cloud. If you’d like to dive deeper, set up an inquiry or guidance session with Tracy Woo or Shannon Germain Farraher for a conversation. source

In early June, I attended Amazon Prime Analyst Day with my colleague Fiona Swerdlow and a select group of retail-focused analysts. Amazon now has over 200 million Prime members across its 26 global markets. Prime drives higher purchase frequency, conversion rates, and lifetime value. Fast delivery, member deals, and a broad portfolio of services turn Prime into a daily utility for members. So where is Prime headed for yet further growth? Amazon is investing in six primary retail initiatives to enhance Prime’s value and reach: Conversational commerce with agentic AI. Amazon’s devices business — including Echo smart speakers, Fire TV, and Alexa-enabled products — is the gateway to Prime-enabled shopping. Earlier this year, Amazon launched Alexa+, an AI-powered voice assistant that will be $19.99 per month (but free for Prime members) and is capable of executing tasks such as managing grocery orders. The more than 600 million Alexa-enabled devices across the globe serve as agentic AI shopping interfaces, turning every conversation into personalized experiences and a potential transaction. Healthcare subscription services. Amazon Pharmacy is expanding its footprint in the prescription drug market in the US. US Prime members receive free two-day delivery on prescriptions, discounts on generics, and access to RxPass — a $5/month subscription for over 50 commonly prescribed medications. In major US metro areas, Amazon is also expanding same-day prescription delivery, using its logistics network to further differentiate its healthcare offering. Fulfillment and Prime benefits beyond Amazon.com. Amazon Multi-Channel Fulfillment and Buy with Prime help merchants simplify their operations by using Amazon’s fulfillment network. It provides Amazon with new revenue streams via fulfillment and delivery. With adoption from brands such as Adidas, Belkin, and Steve Madden, as well as Shopify and Salesforce Commerce Cloud integrations to automate the order fulfillment process, Buy with Prime helps brands offer Prime shopping benefits directly on their direct-to-consumer (DTC) sales channels. Amazon asserts that Buy with Prime helps DTC merchants attract and convert more shoppers, with merchants experiencing a 16% increase in revenue per visitor. Furthermore, 40% of Prime members indicate that they are more likely to make a first-time purchase from a DTC store that features the Prime logo. Grocery delivery services. US Prime members get unlimited grocery delivery on orders over $35 from Amazon Fresh, Whole Foods Market, and an array of local grocery retailers on Amazon.com with a $9.99 monthly or $99.99 annual grocery delivery subscription. They also benefit from grocery deals, delivery in as fast as 2 hours, and integration with Alexa for voice-enabled shopping. In 2024, Amazon generated over $100 billion in gross sales of grocery and household essentials in the US. Global same-day and next-day delivery. Fast, reliable shipping remains the heart of Prime’s value. In 2024, Amazon delivered over 9 billion items globally, either on the same day or the next day. Amazon’s regionalization initiatives in the US and the growth of same-day delivery facilities contributed significantly. Combined with a $4 billion investment for US rural delivery expansion, Amazon aims to bring faster delivery in less densely populated areas. International expansion. Amazon Prime’s global expansion strategy focuses on delivering a localized offering to drive membership growth in emerging markets. For example, the recent Colombia Prime launch bundles free and fast international delivery, Prime Video, and local pricing.   Amazon Prime: Key Focus Areas To Drive Customer Value And Engagement   Forrester clients: We highlighted in our US Online Retail Forecast, 2024 To 2029, as well as in our blog post comparing Amazon and Walmart, that by 2029, we project that these two companies will account for a combined $1.5 trillion (or one-fourth) of US total retail sales and $1.1 trillion (or two-thirds) of US online retail sales. Forrester continues to closely track evolving competitive dynamics through our US Retail Competition Tracker and Global Online Marketplace Tracker. Please schedule a guidance session with me to better understand the shifts in US consumer spending and the changing revenue and profitability shares among major retailers. And don’t miss out on Forrester’s total experience research and my sessions on US economic trends and outlook at CX Summit North America in Nashville, taking place this week (June 23–26, 2025). source

When I was a kid, my friends and I often turned to the Magic 8 Ball for all of life’s biggest questions. “Will I be rich?” Ask again later. “Does my crush like me back?” Don’t count on it. It was a fun game, but let’s be honest: It wasn’t exactly reliable. Fast-forward to today, and some customer success (CS) teams are still operating the same old way — reacting to issues as they arise, hoping for the best, and leaving too much to chance. But in a world where customer expectations are higher than ever and retention is harder than ever, “Ask again later” just doesn’t cut it. So what does the future of CS look like? It’s no longer about customer happiness or solely about customer satisfaction — it’s about anticipating needs, enabling value, and fostering long-term growth. Instead of relying on gut feelings or reactive strategies, tomorrow’s CS teams will need to use smarter, more strategic approaches that set customers up to stay, grow, and advocate. Magic 8 Ball predictions aside, here are a few priorities that next-generation CS teams need to embrace: Own a revenue target. If CS teams want to earn a seat at the executive table, they must directly connect their work to the company’s bottom line. Aligning their goals with revenue incentivizes CS teams to proactively drive adoption, enable value, and identify upsell opportunities. This accountability ensures that CS is not just a support function but a strategic driver of business growth. Invest in digital experiences to support scale. To effectively scale the CS function, B2B companies must build a digital hub that empowers customers to engage at their own pace. This means creating a centralized experience where customers can access self-guided training, connect with peers, and find on-demand resources tailored to their needs. By providing these digital touchpoints, CS teams enable deeper self-service, reducing reliance on one-to-one support while fostering a more engaged customer base armed with the resources needed to achieve their goals. Monetize CS services to become a profit center. To shed the long-standing view that they are a cost center, CS teams should look to monetize their services. By offering tiered levels of service that include premium onboarding, specialized training, and dedicated value consulting, CS teams can provide high-value services that drive deeper adoption and achievement of customer outcomes. This not only offsets operational costs but also reinforces the value of CS as a strategic investment. The days of guessing games and reactive customer success are over. With the right tools and strategies and a new charter, next-generation CS teams create strong relationships, drive long-term value, and stay ahead of customer needs before they arise. The future isn’t about asking the Magic 8 Ball for answers — it’s about building a customer success function that’s predictive, data-driven, and built to scale. And if you were to ask “Is now the time to evolve?” all signs would point to yes. To learn more about the next generation of CS, read the report, To Remain Relevant, Customer Success Requires A Bold New Charter. And if you are a Forrester client and ready to embrace the future, reach out to your account team to book a guidance session with me today. source

Banks create value by winning customers and then serving them in ways that deepen the relationship and drive retention. Forrester’s new Total Experience Score rankings for 25 US banks reveal that banks’ brand promises aren’t resonating and that CX has declined. So what’s going wrong, and which banks are getting it right? What Is Forrester’s Total Experience Score? Forrester’s Total Experience Score measures how well a brand’s promise resonates with both customers and noncustomers (via Forrester’s Brand Experience Index [BX Index™]) and how customers feel about their actual interactions with the brand (through Forrester’s Customer Experience Index [CX Index™]). Together, these rankings paint a full picture of how well banks are winning over new customers and serving existing ones. Banks’ Brand Promises Are Underwhelming, With Little Differentiation Forrester’s new Brand Experience Index measures how well brand perception, across trust, salience, and fit, drives acquisition and retention for both noncustomers and customers. While direct banks’ brand promise was stronger on average than that of multichannel banks, neither were exceptional. All banks should be concerned. Brand promise impacts prospects’ and customers’ willingness to prefer, purchase from, and recommend the bank, as well as pay a premium for its products and services. Across the board, banks received significantly more “poor” BX Index scores from their customers than from noncustomers. This reveals a troubling reality: An already lackluster brand promise to prospects deteriorates even further once they become customers and experience the brand directly. In essence, familiarity doesn’t breed loyalty — it breeds contempt! The Big Picture: Banks Struggle To Stand Out Only six brands earned the “leading” distinction in Forrester’s Total Experience Score growth grid, a map of how a brand wins prospects and serves customers. That’s not exactly a ringing endorsement. But here’s the kicker: Most banks were tightly clustered in a narrow range, making it hard for any one brand to truly stand out. So which banks were the top performers? Multichannel vs. direct banks: Who’s winning with prospects and customers? Spoiler alert: It’s not multichannel banks. With an average Total Experience Score of only 56.6 out of 100, US multichannel banks are falling short of expectations. Direct banks fared a little better, scoring 61.8 on average, largely due to prospects’ more positive perception of those brands. Navy Federal Credit Union was the gold standard among multichannel banks. Across the board, Navy Federal led the multichannel bank pack on Total Experience Score, along with BX Index and CX Index rankings. Navy Federal’s combined performance with customers and noncustomers propelled it deep into the coveted upper-right “leading” quadrant of our growth grid. Capital One, Chase, and TD Bank also placed in that quadrant. American Express National Bank and Charles Schwab Bank led the direct bank brands. On Total Experience Score, American Express National Bank (AMEX) and Charles Schwab Bank led the direct bank pack, but USAA took the lead in the BX Index rankings and Chime was the strongest in the CX Index. Only AMEX and Charles Schwab demonstrated strength at both winning and serving customers. Trust Continues To Be Hard To Earn Earning trust isn’t easy –– and for US banks, it’s critical to attracting prospects, building strong customer relationships, and preparing for the future of banking. This year, the numbers paint an interesting picture: Customers think that most banks are middling on trust. Fewer than three out of five customers say that they trust their bank brand; that still lags the industry’s high in 2021. Navy Federal stood out, leading the pack and scoring the highest ratings from customers across all seven levers of trust. For direct banks, USAA came out on top. Noncustomers trust banks even less. Around one in five noncustomers say that they trust the multichannel bank brands we studied, and just over one in three said that they trust the direct banks. Those are big gaps compared to how actual customers of those same brands feel. For direct banks, AMEX earned the most trust from noncustomers and Capital One led the way among multichannel banks. The takeaway? Banks have to work on earning trust — from their existing customers and especially from prospects. Banking CX Hits New Lows: What’s Behind The Decline? Customer experience in US multichannel banking continues its downward trend, declining for the fourth consecutive year. The story is similar in the direct banking sector, where CX Index scores dropped to the lowest level in nearly a decade. The strong performance of physical-only CX stood out this year: It outpaced both digital and hybrid experiences for the first time. Clearly, traditional customer touchpoints, such as visiting a branch or getting live phone support, still play a key role in building and maintaining customer loyalty. Among the 25 brands studied, only one earned a “good” score, while the majority landed in “OK” and two brands received a “poor” rating. Navy Federal Credit Union retained its top spot among multichannel banks for the 10th year in a row, but even this industry leader saw a CX decline. Compared to its competitors, Chime was the direct bank leader, winning across all three dimensions of CX quality — effectiveness, ease, and emotion. The Message Is Clear: US Banks Need To Do Better The good news? The roadmap is right in front of them. Improving brand experience and customer experience requires a focus on what matters most to customers — and the ability to not just promise but deliver. To learn more, Forrester clients can check out The US Multichannel Banking Experience Metrics Rankings, 2025, and The US Direct Banking Experience Metrics Rankings, 2025. If you’re looking to benchmark how your brand’s perception and customer experience contribute to winning, serving, and retaining customers — or to uncover the strategies of top-performing brands — connect with me via a guidance session. If you’re not a Forrester client, reach out to our sales team! source