Editorial
The Gist
- Personalization requires real-time context. Brands are racing to connect clean, unified data with content that adapts instantly to customer needs.
- AI governance is still immature. While interest in AI is high, most organizations lack structured frameworks to manage risk and scale innovation responsibly.
- Digital experience must deliver value. “Cool” isn’t enough—CX leaders are focused on results-driven personalization that drives loyalty and conversion.
Customer conferences are a great space to connect and learn. But they also serve as a pulse check for brands and their leaders on what’s worth chasing and the challenges that need to be solved.
Customer Experience Trends From ContentCon
At Contentstack’s fourth-annual customer conference, ContentCon (editor's note: this is the author's company), I heard directly from brand leaders in retail and ecommerce, automotive, food and beverage and B2B about what matters most in customer experience today.
They made one thing clear: Brands are moving fast toward digital experiences that are more personalized, more intelligent and deliver again and again.
If Content Is King, Context Is Queen
Two words echoed across nearly every session and conversation: fast and personalized. Brand leaders, regardless of industry, want to deliver customer experiences that feel tailor-made and adapt to a customer in real time.
Speed And Personalization Are Table Stakes
A unique example got everyone excited. Rather than centering the human user, PetMeds, a leading online pet pharmacy, personalizes the experience for the pet instead. But getting that right requires clean, unified data from multiple systems, like pet breed and history, past prescriptions or browser history.
This was one of the biggest challenges discussed between leaders. To create truly individualized experiences, content needs context, and that context comes from data.
Pet-Centered Personalization in Practice
But brand leaders struggle with a data infrastructure problem. They might collect data, but they also need to manage and activate it from every system across the customer journey. Without it, customers will end up with content that’s accurate but irrelevant.
You can’t scale “fast and personalized” without content and data together. Customer experience and marketing leaders don’t need to become data scientists, but they do need to partner closely with their tech teams to close the gaps and unlock the context that modern experiences require.
Related Article: Top Digital Experience Trends
Data Challenges in Delivering Personalized CX
Personalization at scale breaks down when the supporting data infrastructure isn’t connected or actionable. Here’s what leaders shared.
| Challenge | Impact | What’s Needed |
|---|---|---|
| Fragmented Data Systems | Prevents unified customer view and contextual targeting | Integrated data platforms and cross-team alignment |
| Content Without Context | Leads to irrelevant, poorly timed experiences | Real-time data activation and decisioning |
| Lack of AI Governance | Creates compliance risk and stifles innovation | Cross-functional governance councils with legal and marketing |
| Misaligned Teams | Slows execution and customer responsiveness | Unified CX, marketing and tech collaboration |
Most Executives Are Still Searching for the Right AI Governance Model
Why Context Requires Connected Data
Responsible AI frameworks were another timely topic of discussion, for good reason. With the hype of AI agents in the customer experience, brands are under pressure to innovate without crossing ethical or legal lines. But those lines are blurry; most are still figuring out the right way for their organizations.
Talking to leaders across industries, it’s the how that they struggle with. While more are experimenting with AI than before, many still don’t know how to create and enforce AI governance in a way that doesn't stifle creativity.
Why CX Leaders Need AI Governance Frameworks
That’s true for most organizations. In a 2025 report of 100 senior data and AI leaders, only 14 said they actively enforced AI assurance, ensuring systems are accurate, compliant and fair at the enterprise level.
But some are finding the right paths. One digital services executive said she “adopted” a legal partner and committed to learning the details of IP law and regulatory frameworks that impact AI use. In return, she brought that legal partner into marketing conversations about AI. Together, they created a cross-functional AI council that meets several times a week to align on AI decisions, ethical use cases and guardrails.
The council enables them to explore use cases (think: AI-facilitated audience concept testing) while staying true to principles like transparency, fairness and data security. “Everyone has to be brought into understanding,” the executive said. “Technologists can’t expect marketers to figure it out on their own, and vice-versa.”
As we move toward autonomous systems and agentic AI becomes real, this kind of cross-functional alignment will unlock responsible, creative progress across the customer experience ecosystem.
Leaders Aren’t Just Focused on “Cool” Experiences
Cross-Functional Collaboration Is Key
Leaders agreed: Experience for experience’s sake isn’t enough anymore.
Customers want the best digital experiences, yes, but they also want to find the products they’re looking for faster or discover something that feels perfect for them, even if they didn’t ask for it. And they’re willing to give more and pay more for results that feel personal, relevant and valuable: 61% of consumers, to be exact.
Delivering on those expectations takes a modern, scalable technology foundation. But it also takes cross-functional alignment across marketing, product, tech and customer-facing teams to understand what matters most to the customer and how to deliver it the right way.
Customer teams hear the pain and opportunity from the customers themselves. Marketing spots patterns in that behavior, matches those to larger trends and defines ways to activate against it to achieve goals.
Experience Design Must Deliver Outcomes
The most forward-thinking brands break down walls between teams, technologies and touchpoints. They embrace personalization grounded in data, governed by shared principles, and are focused on meaningful results.
As we move into the next era of digital experiences, the brands that win will be the ones that can move fast and stay aligned on what really matters to the customer.
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Core Questions About Contentstack’s ContentCon 2025 Takeaways
Editor's note: What CX and marketing leaders should take away from Contentstack’s latest customer conference—from personalization at scale to AI governance gaps.
Not yet. Despite widespread experimentation, most brands lack defined AI governance models. Only 14 out of 100 senior data leaders report enforcing AI assurance at the enterprise level.
Cross-functional collaboration. Legal, marketing and tech teams must work together to build ethical, scalable AI systems. Brands that align early will gain speed and trust.
Data fragmentation. Many companies have the right content, but without contextual data, personalization falls flat. Bridging marketing and IT is essential to activate insights across the journey.
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