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SHIFT YOUR FOCUS BEYOND OMNICHANNEL Enabling digital interactions is the new brand differentiator

HOW TO INTEGRATE GENAI INTO YOUR CCM STRATEGY: A PRACTICAL GUIDE

TRANSFORMING FORMS AND DOCUMENTS FOR THE MODERN ERA How Are Organizations Investing to Protect Sensitive Data?

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TABLE OF CONTENTS volume 32 issue 2 | Summer.25 | DOCUMENTmedia.com

FEATURES 08

Central Control of Customer Communications Drives Consistent Experiences Across Channels

By Patrick Kehoe

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08

Shift Your Focus Beyond Omnichannel Enabling digital interactions is the new brand differentiator

By Andy Young

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Digital Marketing is King, But Don’t Ignore the Power of Direct Mail Financial institutions can leverage the strength of digital marketing with direct mail to enhance customer engagement

By Joshua Noble

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How to Integrate GenAI into Your CCM Strategy: A Practical Guide Don’t think about replacing your current approach — rather, think about evolving it with a little help from AI

By Elizabeth Stephen & Mia Papanicolaou

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The Threat of Cyberattacks Remains a Top Concern How are organizations investing to protect sensitive data?

By Eric Riz

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Transforming Forms and Documents for the Modern Era Harnessing AI for business efficiency

By Angele Taylor

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Beyond Personas

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Creating dynamic content that adapts to individual customer preferences and behaviors

By Alan Burger

DEPARTMENTS 06 26

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Letter from the Advisory Board What the Analysts Say

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What’s New

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Think About It

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LETTER FROM THE ADVISORY BOARD:

Building Stronger Customer Connections in a Complex Digital World

By Jennifer Raml As customer expectations evolve rapidly, organizations face the challenge of delivering consistent, personalized experiences across an expanding array of touchpoints. This issue of DOCUMENT STRATEGY provides a comprehensive roadmap for navigating today’s complex communications landscape, where success requires mastering both emerging technologies and timeless principles of clear communication.

Our contributors share best practices for managing content across various platforms to ensure unified brand messaging — a challenge that has become increasingly complex as customers engage through email, mobile apps, social media, print and other channels. You’ll discover proven strategies for maintaining brand consistency while adapting messages to each platform’s unique strengths.

Creating dynamic content that adapts to individual customer preferences represents the next frontier in personalization. This issue explores practical approaches to developing content systems that respond intelligently to customer actions, delivering the right message at the right moment without sacrificing efficiency or scale.

These insights prove invaluable as organizations seek to differentiate their brands in an increasingly crowded marketplace.

We examine where industry leaders see their best opportunities to stand out within customer communications. Often, it’s not about the latest technology but rather how thoughtfully organizations integrate human expertise with digital 6

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capabilities to create memorable experiences.

Security remains paramount in this interconnected environment. With cyber threats growing more sophisticated daily, we investigate how organizations are investing to protect sensitive data while maintaining agility. You’ll learn about emerging security frameworks and practical steps to safeguard customer information without creating friction in the customer experience.

Artificial intelligence plays an increasingly important role in modern CCM strategies. Our experts detail practical applications — from email bots providing instant customer service to content rationalization tools ensuring consistency across thousands of documents. You’ll gain insights into using AI for hyper-personalization, customer analytics and transforming traditional forms and documents for greater efficiency.

We also showcase how financial institutions pioneer innovative approaches by combining digital marketing’s precision with direct mail’s tangible impact. This hybrid strategy demonstrates that the future isn’t about choosing between channels but orchestrating them to create cohesive customer journeys.

As you explore this issue, consider how these diverse strategies can work together to strengthen your organization’s customer communications.

The path forward requires balancing innovation with reliability, personalization with privacy, and efficiency with empathy. Whether you’re implementing AI solutions, fortifying cybersecurity measures, or reimagining content delivery, the insights shared here will guide your journey.

On behalf of the DOCUMENT STRATEGY Advisory Board, we hope these insights help you build stronger, more meaningful connections with your customers in 2025 and beyond.

president Chad Griepentrog publisher Ken Waddell managing editor Erin Eagan [ erin@rbpub.com ] contributing editor Amanda Armendariz contributors Alan Burger Patrick Kehoe Joshua Noble Mia Papanicolaou Eric Riz Elizabeth Stephen Angele Taylor Andy Young advertising Ken Waddell [ ken.w@rbpub.com ] 608.235.2212 audience development manager Rachel Chapman [ rachel@rbpub.com ] creative director Kelli Cooke

PO BOX 259098 Madison WI 53725-9098 p: 608-241-8777 f: 608-241-8666 email: customerservice@rbpub.com DOCUMENT Strategy Media (ISSN 1081-4078) is published on a daily basis via its online portal and produces special print editions by Madmen3, PO BOX 259098, Madison, WI 53725-9098. All material in this magazine is copyrighted ©2025 by Madmen3 All rights reserved. Nothing may be reproduced in whole or in part without written permission from the publisher. Any correspondence sent to DOCUMENT Strategy Media, Madmen3, or its staff becomes the property of Madmen3.

The articles in this magazine represent the views of the authors and not those of Madmen3 or DOCUMENT Strategy Media. Madmen3 and/or DOCUMENT Strategy Media expressly disclaim any liability for the products or services sold or otherwise endorsed by advertisers or authors included in this magazine.

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REPRINTS: For high quality reprints, please contact Chad Griepentrog, 608-241-8777, chad.g@rbpub.com

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ADVISORY BOARD Chris Canaday

With over 30 years of experience in print and electronic media, Chris Canaday is a grizzled veteran of the communications revolution. Over the past decade, he has been focused on helping Northwestern Mutual modernize its client communications ecosystem. Currently, Chris serves as the Assistant Director of Strategic Initiatives within the Print and Digital Document Management (PDDM) function at Northwestern Mutual. In this role, he is helping shape the company’s Client Experience vision, expand digital capabilities and modernize legacy processes. Chris has held a variety of technical and business positions, including Information Architect, Senior Engineer, and Director of Transformation. He has also led numerous tech modernization, outsourcing and eDelivery acceleration initiatives, demonstrating his ability to drive innovation and efficiency for the enterprise. Chris previously served as an Advisory Board member for the Document Strategy Forum.

Aaron Horsfield

Aaron Horsfield, MHA, MPH, is an experienced leader in healthcare and insurance.

As the Sr. Director of Plan Operations at UPMC Health Plan, he drives operational efficiency initiatives through transformation, change management, and transparency. His background includes health policy, transactional communications, insurance operations, and healthcare strategy. Aaron is a 2022 Pittsburgh Business Times and Leadership Pittsburgh Inc. 30 under 30 honoree, volunteer board meeting with Iowa Hugh O’Brian Youth Leadership, United of Way of Southwestern PA, National Avairy, GOLD Leadership Group with the University of Iowa Center for Advancement, and advisory board member across the CXM industry. Additionally, he served as an Advisory Board Member for the Document Strategy Forum.

Jennifer Raml

Jennifer Raml, Information Technology Manager at Acuity a Mutual Insurance Company, is a strategic technology leader with over two decades of experience streamlining document workflows and customer communications in banking and P&C insurance industries. She has successfully led enterprise-wide CCM implementations and automation initiatives while building high-performing technical teams. Her expertise spans document strategy, business analysis, and process optimization, with a proven track record in modernizing customer communications.

Andy Keller

Andy Keller is the Domain Architect at USAA responsible for Operational Messaging at USAA. Andy began his career at USAA in 1984. For 41 years Andy has been involved in USAA Communication technology, starting as a specialist in Printing, but over time expanding into Omnichannel. Andy provides technical direction for communications resulting from business transactions. This includes EMAIL, SMS, Mobile Messaging, Hosted Documents, and Print\Mail. USAA’s goal is to communicate with their members where and when they want. Additionally, he served as an Advisory Board Member for the Document Strategy Forum. Via this forum as well as other industry groups he has forged a level of expertise that the industry finds value. He specializes in eDelivery, Document Accessibility, and print vendor management while also maintaining a reasonable level of understanding of Document Archive and Records Management domains.

Pat McGrew

Pat McGrew helps companies perform better in the print hardware, software and printing services industries. Her experience spans all customer communication channelsand segments including transaction print, data-driven and static marketing, packaging and label print, textiles, and production commercial print using offset, inkjet, and toner. She is certified as a Master Electronic Document Professional by Xplor International, with lifetime status, and as a Color Management Professional by IDEAlliance.

Andy Young

Andy Young, founder of Treeline Research, has dedicated his career to understanding how people communicate, and how to monetize those inevitable shifts in communication.

His professional path has wound through all aspects of the communications spectrum. He grew up in print, working for businesses big and small, market leaders and entrepreneurs, frequently finding himself as a thought leader at the forefront of a market in transition, which starts with disruptive innovation to be successful. Treeline Research is a specialized market research firm focused on the transformation of paper customer communications into digital experiences within banking, general insurance, financial services and healthcare insurance sectors.

Visit www.treelinepress.com.

Will Morgan

Will Morgan is an experienced industry analyst with expertise in the Customer Communications Services market. As Aspire’s Senior Research Analyst, he works alongside the wider team to provide advice, insight and vital intelligence to the company’s expanding customer base on both sides of the Atlantic. Before joining Aspire, Will worked with Keypoint Intelligence-InfoTrends’ Customer Communications and Business Development Advisory Services.

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CENTRAL CONTROL OF CUSTOMER COMMUNICATIONS

DRIVES CONSISTENT EXPERIENCES ACROSS CHANNELS

By Patrick Kehoe

T

rust is the foundation of every strong customer relationship, but it’s fragile. It can take years of consistent positive interactions to build, and only one or two poor experiences to undo. The most successful organizations recognize that to build loyalty and maximize customer lifetime value, they must deliver a cohesive brand experience and a consistent standard of quality across every touchpoint, across all channels and at every stage of the customer lifecycle.

This is especially true in regulated industries like financial services, healthcare and insurance, where organizations are entrusted to manage the most personal and foundational aspects of people’s lives. Because these relationships often span decades and hundreds of touchpoints, maintaining consistency is a long-term challenge, but it also presents ongoing opportunities to deepen engagement and expand value.

Yet, for many large enterprises in these sectors, fragmented and inconsistent customer experiences are often the rule.

A common scenario might be: A customer is acquired through a modern, responsive website and onboarded through an

intuitive digital workflow. Once approved, they receive their welcome kit as a PDF tucked inside the document portal of a mobile app. It’s visually polished and rich with personalized details — but reading it means pinching, zooming and scrolling through a file not designed for a mobile screen. Weeks later, their first paper statement arrives: black and white, outdated branding and basic personalization.

“Are these really from the same company?” the customer wonders. Even if the customer doesn’t notice directly, the subliminal impression leaves a negative brand perception.

An inconsistent customer journey like this, sleek and modern in some places and straight out of the 1980s in others, is a symptom of the way communications are managed behind the scenes. The acquisition side, where ROI is easier to prove, has often modernized while servicing communications remain tied to aging, legacy systems that are seen as too costly or risky to replace. These systems may still get the job done, but they are increasingly expensive to maintain and simply don’t have the capabilities needed to deliver the personalized, digital-first experiences customers expect.

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As a result, communications are fragmented across the organization, spread across disconnected systems, siloed teams and, in many cases, outsourced entirely to third-party agencies. Common content elements like disclosures, contact information and brand assets are often duplicated across hundreds of templates and systems, each managed separately and updated one communication at a time. Making this worse, business teams rarely can make these changes themselves, needing technical teams or vendors to do it for them. This can introduce weeks, sometimes months, of delays, making it difficult to plan and coordinate launches or meet deadlines with confidence. All of this adds up to a change management process that is incredibly slow, inefficient and vulnerable to inconsistency and human error.

Within this fragmented ecosystem, where communications management systems don’t talk to one another, draw from different customer data sources and vary widely in personalization capabilities, it becomes nearly impossible to maintain consistency or track what’s being sent, to whom, when or why. Without a clear picture of the full customer journey, organizations simply can’t deliver a cohesive customer experience.

A centralized content hub is key to driving consistency Solving these issues requires more than having alignment meetings or enforcing stricter review processes. It requires eliminating operational and technical silos and implementing a modern, centralized content hub where communications across all channels and stages of the customer journey can be managed inside a unified platform.

When every team works within the same environment, leverages common content and shares the same core toolset, the benefits scale quickly. Collaboration is easier, feedback loops shrink and best practices driving results for one team can be quickly adopted by others. When teams can leverage the same customer data and personalization options, it’s easier to create relevant communications that appear to the customer like they’re coming from one connected 10

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organization that understands them, their history and their preferences. With all communications being generated by one system, it also becomes easier to track what’s being sent, enabling teams to coordinate touchpoints and shape customer journeys that build trust and deepen engagement over time.

Speed and efficiency are another critical consideration. A large Canadian bank reported having to edit 70 separate templates across multiple systems to update a credit card rate promotion.

Centralization in one system and reuse of common content objects enables updates to be made in minutes rather than days. Business teams also need more direct control over the communications they manage. That starts by giving non-technical business users access to intuitive, no-code content management tools that enable them to create communications, make changes, run tests and gather approvals without needing to involve IT or go through external vendors.

But that autonomy must be balanced with system-wide governance and the consistent enforcement of standards. A system that includes integrated workflows that route content to the right stakeholders for review and approval before anything goes live, as well as ensure every change is tracked via audit logging, can support this. AI can also be leveraged to automate the enforcement of quality standards by detecting issues such as restricted terms, off-brand language or content that is overly complex or strikes the wrong tone. Generative AI can help solve these issues at scale by rewriting content so it aligns with brand, plain language or sentiment standards without compromising its underlying meaning. It can also provide translations to support diverse population needs.

Modular content unlocks consistency at scale A system which supports a modular content management approach differs from the traditional “document-centric” approach, where content is locked up in templates tied to specific communications and channels. Instead, communications are broken down into individual content components which can

be seamlessly shared and reused across multiple communications. Updates made to a shared content object, such as a product description or company contact details, are automatically reflected across every communication where it appears.

Controlling content from a single point of change is far more efficient and significantly reduces the risk of outdated or inconsistent messaging reaching customers. This model also makes it easier to scale what works. High-performing content, like an ad with high conversion or a clear explanation of a complex concept, can be easily adopted by other teams and reused across the organization.

Because modular content is managed independently from the channel or system-specific templates used to control the display (AKA the “presentation layer”), it can be used to support a wide range of experiences. Traditional composed formats like printed statements and PDFs can still be supported, while the same content can be used as part of dynamic digital experiences like mobile apps, chatbots and websites. This is made possible through high-speed, headless APIs, which allow front-end systems to pull the right content and display and format it appropriately for the channel in real time. The result is true channel agility: Organizations can expand into new digital experiences without duplicating effort or introducing content silos, all while maintaining consistency and control from a single, centralized source.

By aligning teams around shared tools and data, giving business users the control they need and implementing a centralized content hub which supports all channels, organizations can finally eliminate the operational and technological siloes that drive inefficiency, undermine consistency and slow innovation. In a market where expectations are rising and customer journeys grow more complex by the day, this shift isn’t just a means to improve efficiency, it’s essential to staying competitive.

PATRICK KEHOE drives product strategy in collaboration with the product development team at Messagepoint. For more information on Messagepoint, visit www.messagepoint.com.

SHIFT YOUR FOCUS BEYOND OMNICHANNEL

BY ANDY YOUNG

F

Enabling digital interactions is the new brand differentiator

or years, omnichannel communications have been designed around customer preferences across the journey and have been positioned as a strategic advantage by vendors and print service providers (PSPs). Today, they are simply expected. Customers now engage with brands through print, email, web portals, mobile apps and text, and they expect those channels to work together.

But simply reaching customers across multiple channels is no longer enough to stand out.

Treeline Research’s 2024 Paper Suppression Study found that over

85% of monthly interactions between customers and financial institutions are digital. Nearly all customers check their mobile apps, email or online accounts before ever opening physical mail. Yet many of these digital communications remain static, one-way and disconnected from the broader customer journey.

Organizations that want to differentiate their brand must shift focus.

The opportunity is not in adding more communication channels. It is in enabling meaningful digital interactions; real conversations that adapt to the customer and provide context, responsiveness and value.

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The Limits of Omnichannel Omnichannel strategies have played an important role in bridging the gap between legacy print workflows and digital expectations. At their best, they have allowed companies to meet customers where they are. But most omnichannel deployments still function as multi-output platforms. They deliver the same message through different formats, often without considering customer intent or engagement.

For example, a customer receives a printed bill, a matching PDF via email and a generic text notification, all pointing to a payment portal. Each message is a version of the same content. None provide interaction. None respond to customer behavior. None adapt to what the customer needs at that moment.

This static model not only limits the customer experience (CX), but it also misses an opportunity to build brand value. In many cases, it increases cost, complexity and customer service volume.

Customers are forced to call, click or search for answers because the communication itself fails to resolve their need.

Conversations, Not Just Communications A more effective model centers on digital interactions. This is where the conversation begins. Digital interactions are dynamic, personalized and designed to respond to a customer’s question or intent. Instead of sending a bill and hoping the customer pays it, a company might embed options, ask for feedback or provide helpful context within the preferred channel.

This shift toward interactions over channel outputs is already evident in leading customer experience strategies. Banks, insurers and healthcare providers are embedding interactive messaging within their apps and emails.

Digital touchpoints now include AI chat, smart forms, video explainers and personalized links to relevant content.

When messages answer anticipated questions, provide real-time updates

or enable self-service, the experience becomes relational rather than transactional. And when that happens, customers are more likely to trust the brand, respond quickly and remain loyal.

This is not about eliminating print.

It is about making digital work harder and smarter.

The Role of Print Service Providers This shift presents both a challenge and an opportunity for PSPs. Many still define their business by outputs: formatting, printing and delivering documents. Even when digital services are offered, they often replicate the print model; formatting the same content and pushing it through another channel in a static, one-way format.

Leading PSPs are moving beyond this approach. They are repositioning as enablers of digital interactions and conversations, helping clients orchestrate communications across systems and touchpoints. This includes: Supporting preference management: allowing customers to choose how and when they receive different types of messages Orchestrating multistep journeys: guiding customers through onboarding, billing, service and renewals in coordinated ways Adding interactive features: embedding secure links, response options or layered content to engage customers directly Connecting data across touchpoints: delivering insights that help clients personalize and optimize each interaction A PSP that helps an insurance company reduce call volume by improving the clarity of digital statements and adding interactive FAQ tools is doing more than saving print costs. It is improving customer experience and helping differentiate the insurer’s brand.

A Brand Apart To stay relevant and grow with enterprise clients, print service providers

must move beyond a production mindset and into the business of enabling customer interactions. Here’s how to make that shift: 1. Redefine Your Value Move beyond commoditized channels and volume. Position your services around measurable outcomes such improving response rates, reducing customer effort, and supporting brand loyalty.

2. Expand Digital Capabilities Invest in or partner to deliver digital services that support real-time personalization, interaction management, and multi-step journey orchestration.

3. Align to CX Goals Tie your value to customer experience metrics. Help clients measure engagement, resolution rates and channel preference shifts. Use these insights to drive continuous improvement.

Customer communications have evolved from static outputs to interactive experiences. Omnichannel alone is no longer a competitive advantage, it’s expected. The brands that stand out will be those that carry meaningful conversations with their customers, wherever they are and however they choose to engage.

Print service providers that recognize this shift and act on it can become critical partners in helping organizations differentiate their brands not by producing more documents, but by delivering smarter, more effective interactions that reflect the needs of today’s customer.

ANDY YOUNG is the founder and lead analyst at TreelinePress, an independent research and publishing platform on Substack that covers the transformation of customer communications in a digital-first world. Through original research, interviews, and industry commentary, Andy examines how organizations are replacing mailed documents with digital interactions, and what that means for customer experience, compliance, and communication strategy across sectors like financial services, insurance, utilities, and healthcare.

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DIGITAL MARKETING IS KING, BUT DON’T IGNORE THE POWER OF DIRECT MAIL Financial institutions can leverage the strength of digital marketing with direct mail to enhance customer engagement

O

ver the past five years, many financial institutions have put in the work to “make the shift,” investing heavily in digital technologies from back-end systems to marketing platforms. But in an age where digital communications seem to dominate every conversation, it’s easy to assume that traditional methods like direct mail have lost relevance.

This couldn’t be further from the truth. Direct mail remains a powerful and insightful tool for reaching and engaging customers, as 72% of consumers regularly read or look at mailed ads, and 82% look at them at least once weekly.

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Overlooking direct mail as a complement to digital communication methods is a mistake.

Instead, recognize the enduring importance of direct mail to your customers and its potential to build trust, complement your digital marketing efforts and maximize your return on investment (ROI). By supporting direct mail, even amid rising costs, you can enhance customer communication, reduce expenses and take customer engagement to the next level.

Tangibility Builds Trust Many people still look forward to opening and reading well-designed, personalized direct mail, whether

flyer, postcard or insert. According to a recent Vericast Direct Mail Influence Study, customers spend an average of 1.6 minutes with a direct mail ad compared to 1.1 minutes for a digital ad. Digital is great for quick attention, but direct mail is a strong choice for a message that aims to deliver a powerful and lasting impact.

But do these elements help to build trust?

The same Vericast study also revealed that direct mail is a highly trusted form of marketing. 58% of survey respondents found direct mail trustworthy, with 67% stating they trust it regarding their privacy concerns. The study also showed that 54% of respondents felt

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By Joshua Noble

that looking through mailed ads is a pleasurable and relaxing experience.

When researchers further segmented participant responses, the study revealed that 58% of parents and a notable two-thirds of millennial parents enjoy looking through direct mail.

The physical presence of a well-designed piece of direct mail makes it difficult for customers to overlook, and the effort invested in producing and delivering it makes recipients feel valued. The effort and attention to detail not only improve the customer experience but also boost ROI, proving that including direct mail in your customer communication strategy is worthwhile.

Complement Your Digital Marketing Financial institutions can leverage the strength of digital marketing with direct mail to enhance customer engagement.

Together, digital marketing and direct mail can create a seamless customer journey. For example, with the right customer communications management technology, a well-designed, printed and mailed flyer with a QR

code can drive customers or members to a personalized landing page.

Using customer communication software makes it easy to use collected digital data to segment your customers or members and tailor direct mail pieces to each based on demographics, customer preferences, or purchase history.

This level of customization ensures your message truly resonates with the right recipient for higher conversion rates.

Striving for instant, personalized and interactive experiences that appeal to customers who prefer direct mail can significantly enhance engagement and overall campaign performance.

According to the Vericast study, 60% of participants indicated that direct mail ads are easier to remember when ready to purchase, compared to only 44% for digital ads. A unified approach ensures consistent messaging across multiple touchpoints, reinforcing customer confidence in your brand.

Maximize Your ROI— Despite Rising Costs While direct mail remains a crucial communications channel for many customers, we must recognize the continued rising costs. In July 2024, USPS announced a rate increase of 5.4% for Ground Advantage, 5.7% increase for Priority Mail services and 5.9% for Priority Mail Express. It’s clear that moving forward, you can’t simply stop direct mail services — you must find innovative ways to maintain profitability from mail campaigns.

Leverage Your Statement Mailings One of the best ways for financial institutions to see ROI from print and mail marketing campaigns is to include marketing messages on customer statements and other regulatory communications.

Whether print or digital delivery, statements have an incredibly high open rate of 95%. Of those customers, 85% read them more than once.

It’s critical to evaluate your current statement design to unlock unused white space that can help maximize your ROI. With a modern design, various templates with the right fonts, colors and design elements can make statements more straightforward to read and understand, helping to reduce calls to customer support.

It’s also possible to get specific and create targeted content with datadriven, personalized information that speaks directly to different customer segments. Onserts make adding campaign images to unused blocks of space simple, while inserts allow you to add selective pieces of content to the statement package.

Track, Then Measure Your Data Here’s where combining digital marketing with print and mail communications becomes crucial. Adding QR codes and personalized URLs to track and monitor response rates to campaigns or regulatory documents like statements helps you to continuously refine your strategies from gathered customer data.

Reviewing this data allows you to refine your strategies to ensure each subsequent campaign is more cost-effective and delivers higher ROI.

A Timeless Communications Tool for Omnichannel Success Direct mail is very much alive and well! Despite going digital, you must acknowledge that direct mail remains a crucial tool in your customer communications arsenal. By providing truly omnichannel, personalized communications that include tactile direct mail that complement your digital marketing efforts, you can maximize your ROI and offer superior customer experience.

JOSHUA NOBLE Sales at Doxim.

is

Vice

President,

US

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question is no longer if but how to apply the technology effectively.

The Business Case for GenAI in CCM

HOW TO INTEGRATE GEN AI INTO YOUR CCM STRATEGY: A PRACTICAL GUIDE Don’t think about replacing your current approach — rather, think about evolving it with a little help from AI

By Mia Papani c ol aou and El i zab et h S t ep h en

W

e’ve spoken to numerous enterprises and print service providers and there is no doubt that Customer Communications Management (CCM) stands at a pivotal crossroads. We know that today’s customers expect better interactions across all touchpoints; however, when it comes to regulated communications, most organizations struggle to deliver on what customers expect. Companies are having to deal with economic pressures, changing customer expectations and regulatory shifts. Artificial Intelligence (AI) can no longer just be a buzzword. It offers 16

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a way to deliver value at scale on these essential communications.

Having spent years helping organizations shift from legacy documents to dynamic, customer-centric versions, one thing is clear: AI is changing the game. We strongly feel that it’s not about replacing what works; rather, it’s about enhancing current processes, communications and documents with smarter tools and better data that add value to the customer.

Generative AI (GenAI) is a transformative technology for CCM strategies.

With 70% of CX leaders planning to integrate GenAI into most of their touchpoints in the next two years, according to Zendesk Research, the

Before diving into implementation strategies within CCM, let’s understand why GenAI matters for customer communications, according to a recent survey by Deloitte on the State of GenAI: 1. Improved Efficiency and Productivity: 56% of organizations cite this as the top benefit they hope to achieve with GenAI. 2. Cost Reduction: 35% of companies expect GenAI to help lower operational costs.

3. Enhanced Customer Relationships: 23% believe GenAI will improve relationships with customers.

4. Revenue Growth: 25% anticipate increased revenue through more effective communications.

Most importantly, GenAI helps bridge the widening gap between customer expectations and what companies currently deliver.

Six Strategic Applications of GenAI in CCM 1. Data Management AI really shines when it can work with good data, and on the other side of the coin, it helps make data better. From resolving duplicate records and filling in missing fields to enriching customer profiles from various data sources, AI can play a critical role in maintaining data hygiene. Some instances include: Automating data cleaning and standardization: Identifying and correcting or flagging inconsistencies across databases Extracting insights from unstructured data: Converting free-text fields into structured, actionable information Ensuring data security and compliance: Identifying potential vulnerabilities in data storage and transmission 2. Content Rationalization Many organizations have hundreds and even thousands of templates without any consistency across those templates.

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Maintaining these variations is costly.

Having a clear picture of the extent of the issue is a daunting task. This is where GenAI can help: Identify duplicate or similar content: Finding redundancies across communication templates Standardize messaging and terminology: Ensuring consistent language use Improve readability: Adjusting content to appropriate comprehension levels Analyze sentiment: Ensuring communications convey the intended emotional tone 3. Hyper-Personalization True personalization goes beyond dropping in a first name or referencing a recent transaction. With AI, we can achieve hyper-personalization that adapts in real time to a customer’s needs, preferences and context. GenAI enables true hyper-personalization by: Creating customer-specific content: Generating unique messaging based on individual preferences and behaviors Microsegmentation: Drawing on a variety of data sets, create sub-sections of customers to personalize and tailor content Dynamically adjusting tone and style: Matching communication style to customer preferences 4. Next-Best-Message Optimization Rather than static content in regulated communications, GenAI can determine the optimal message for each customer by: Recommending next-best actions: From payment nudges to suggesting relevant products or services based on customer history Optimizing send timing: Determining when customers are most receptive to communications like billing where payment is required or collections notices 5. Customer Analytics If data is the fuel, analytics is the engine, and AI makes it smarter. By analyzing

trends across customer interactions, AI can identify who is likely to respond to actions that need to be taken, who may be confused by certain documents, and who is at risk of disengaging altogether.

GenAI transforms how organizations understand customer behavior by: Predicting customer needs: Anticipating requirements before customers explicitly express them Detecting dissatisfaction signals: Identifying early warning signs of potential issues

From predictive insights to dynamic content and smarter workflows, the future of CCM is digital AND intelligent.

6. AI-Driven Conversational Interfaces Traditional chatbots follow rigid decision trees. AI powered bots can be incorporated in various channels (and documents) to help respond to common customer queries, automate follow-ups, and even trigger proactive outreach based on customer behavior. GenAIpowered conversational interfaces can: Maintain context across interactions: Remembering previous conversations for continuity Generate human-like responses: Creating natural, conversational replies Learn from interactions: Continuously improving based on customer conversations

Getting Started with AI in CCM We often get asked: “Where do I begin?”

The answer depends on your current state and strategic goals, but here are a few universal principles we recommend: Start with a clear use case: Whether it’s optimizing email performance or reducing template volume, define the problem before applying AI.

Ensure your data is ready: Clean, connected data is essential. Without it, AI models will underperform. Think about people and process: AI tools amplify productivity. Make sure your teams understand how to use insights and act on recommendations. Measure outcomes: Track improvements in engagement, conversion and operational efficiency. Use these wins to expand AI’s role over time. Incorporate privacy and security protocols: Ensure that applications comply with relevant regulations and you have robust data protection measures in place Think about bias and accuracy: Audit outputs for potential bias in language and establish a rigorous validation process, along with human oversight.

Conclusion: The Future of CCM is AI-Enhanced, Not AI-Replaced AI won’t magically solve all your CCM challenges. However, when it’s applied thoughtfully, it has the potential to transform how you engage with customers, making interactions more intelligent, responsive, and more valuable.

From predictive insights to dynamic content and smarter workflows, the future of CCM is digital AND intelligent. Don’t think about replacing your current approach, rather think about evolving it with a little help from AI.

MIA PAPANICALOU helps companies go paperless for transactional customer communications and works to improve those touchpoints through customized strategy and advisory services.She is a regular speaker and blogger on digital customer communication, digital maturity and improving the customer experience.

ELIZABETH STEPHEN is an expert in CCM and helping clients utilize digital communications to meet their CX goals. As a true specialist in transactional communications, Liz has the ability to help companies make the needed microchanges that will immediately impact the customer experience, while putting the steps in place to make long-term changes.

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Why Security Is Now a Boardroom Issue

THE THREAT OF CYBERATTACKS REMAINS A TOP CONCERN

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How are organizations investing to protect sensitive data?

By Eric Riz

n an era defined by digital acceleration, remote work and ubiquitous cloud services, cybersecurity threats have evolved from isolated IT incidents to strategic business risks. Cybercriminals have grown more sophisticated, attacks are more coordinated, and the cost of failure is staggering. The need to secure sensitive data — intellectual property, financials, health records, customer information — has become one of the foremost concerns for business leaders and technology strategists alike.

Across industries, executives are waking up to a new reality: data breaches are not just probable — they are inevitable. The challenge is not only in preventing attacks, but in building a resilient digital environment that can detect, respond and recover faster than ever before.

Cyber Threats Are Increasing in Scope and Severity The past five years have seen exponential growth in cyberattacks, fueled 18

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by geopolitical tensions, AI-generated threats and the rapid digitization of services. Ransomware attacks alone increased by over 90% in the last 12 months, according to Palo Alto Networks.

Industries like healthcare, manufacturing, and finance remain prime targets due to the value and sensitivity of their data, but no sector is immune.

Compounding the threat is the surge in “as-a-service” cybercrime. With ransomware-as-a-service (RaaS) and phishing kits widely available on the dark web, even low-skill attackers can launch sophisticated campaigns. These developments have significantly lowered the barrier to entry for malicious actors, increasing the volume and variety of threats.

Meanwhile, the average cost of a data breach has reached $4.45 million globally, per IBM’s 2024 Cost of a Data Breach Report. This figure doesn’t even account for long-term impacts like loss of customer trust, shareholder confidence or regulatory scrutiny—especially under frameworks like GDPR, HIPAA or CCPA.

Gone are the days when cybersecurity was a technical problem delegated to IT departments. Today, it’s a strategic pillar influencing brand reputation, investor confidence and customer loyalty. Gartner reports that by 2026, 70% of boards will include at least one member with cybersecurity expertise, a significant jump from 2020 levels.

As a result, organizations are increasing cybersecurity budgets — even during economic slowdowns. According to PwC’s 2025 Global Digital Trust Insights Survey, 65% of executives plan to increase cybersecurity spending this year, with particular emphasis on infrastructure hardening, cloud security and employee training.

So, where exactly is the money going? Here, we explore how organizations are rethinking their approach and investing in smarter, more adaptive cybersecurity strategies.

1. Zero Trust: Assume Breach, Verify Everything Zero Trust has transitioned from buzzword to blueprint. It reflects a critical shift in philosophy: instead of trusting anything inside the network, organizations must treat every access attempt — whether from an employee, partner, or application — as potentially hostile.

Core Zero Trust Investments: Identity & Access Management (IAM): Solutions like Okta, Azure Active Directory, and Duo Security help enforce strong authentication, conditional access policies and privileged access governance. Micro-segmentation: Security teams are isolating critical systems and workloads to prevent lateral movement in case of a breach. Continuous verification: Behavioral analytics and session monitoring tools validate users based on actions, not just credentials.

Microsoft, in particular, has built Zero Trust natively into its ecosystem, integrating identity, device compliance and cloud app security across services.

SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE! Enterprises are increasingly choosing platforms that provide seamless policy enforcement without undermining user productivity.

2. Data Protection and Visibility: Guarding the Crown Jewels As data sprawls across cloud apps, mobile devices and third-party platforms, traditional perimeter defenses no longer suffice. Organizations are refocusing efforts on securing the data itself, wherever it lives.

Key Strategies Include: Data Loss Prevention (DLP): Tools that monitor and restrict sensitive data movement — especially across email, OneDrive, Teams and SharePoint — are vital to mitigating insider risk and accidental exposure. Encryption by default: Encrypting data at rest and in transit is now table stakes, with many firms adding client-side encryption to bolster confidentiality. Data classification and labeling: Microsoft Purview and other compliance solutions help organizations tag and protect data based on sensitivity, regulatory impact, or business risk.

This level of control not only reduces exposure but also simplifies audit readiness — a growing concern as regulatory bodies demand proof of data governance maturity.

3. AI-Driven Detection and Response With the sheer volume of threats and alerts, manual detection is no longer scalable. Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) are now embedded in modern Security Operations Centers (SOCs) to enhance speed, accuracy and efficiency.

AI Investment Priorities: Security Information and Event Management (SIEM): Cloud-native platforms like Microsoft Sentinel use AI to correlate telemetry from across the enterprise, reducing noise and highlighting real threats. Extended Detection and Response (XDR): These platforms unify signals across endpoints, servers, email

and networks to create a cohesive security posture. Automated playbooks: AI enables pre-defined responses to known threats — blocking access, isolating endpoints or initiating forensic investigations — without human intervention.

Empowered employees are often the last line of defense. Treating them as active participants in security— not passive risks—can significantly reduce exposure.

What once took hours of manual investigation can now be actioned in minutes, improving the Mean Time to Detect (MTTD) and Mean Time to Respond (MTTR) — critical metrics in cyber defense.

Looking ahead, the future of cybersecurity lies in its seamless integration with business strategy. Forward-thinking organizations don’t just view security as insurance — they treat it as a competitive differentiator. Cyber risk is now a board metric, often tied to ESG, regulatory scorecards and M&A due diligence. Secure digital experiences foster customer trust, particularly in consumer-facing industries like fintech, retail and healthcare. Proactive risk management enables innovation. When data is protected by design, companies can adopt new technologies — like AI and IoT — without paralyzing risk.

The threat of cyberattacks is not fading — it’s evolving. But so are the tools, strategies, and mindsets required to counter them.

4. Building a Security-Aware Culture Technology alone can’t fix what behavior breaks. Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report revealed that 74% of breaches involve a human element, whether through phishing, stolen credentials, or simple mistakes.

To combat this, leading organizations are elevating cybersecurity awareness to a cultural norm, not an afterthought.

Common Approaches: Role-based training: Tailored modules that reflect employee responsibilities — developers, HR, finance — enhance relevance and retention. Phishing simulations: Regular, randomized tests keep users sharp and provide metrics on susceptibility. Gamified learning: Interactive platforms and reward systems increase engagement, particularly with younger or hybrid workforces.

What’s Next: Security as a Business Enabler

Conclusion: Resilience Over Resistance The threat of cyberattacks is not fading — it’s evolving. But so are the tools, strategies, and mindsets required to counter them. Organizations that succeed in this landscape won’t be those with the highest spend, but those with the most strategic, integrated, and adaptive approach to cybersecurity.

By embedding Zero Trust principles, leveraging AI for real-time defense, securing data at its core, and fostering a resilient culture, businesses can turn a top concern into a long-term strength.

In a world where data is power, protecting it must be a shared, organization-wide responsibility — from the boardroom to the browser.

An established leader focused on corporate efficiency, strategy and change, ERIC RIZ founded data analytics firm VERIFIED and Microsoft consulting firm eMark Consulting Ltd. Email eric@ericriz.com or visit www.ericriz.com for more information on how to govern your data journey.

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SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE! fosters a more engaging development environment, with the potential to transform how software is built.

Dynamic schema bindings leverage AI to intelligently understand and interpret schema structures, enabling the automatic association of form field elements with their corresponding elements in the schema. This capability allows for seamless integration and mapping of data between forms and backend systems, ensuring that the information entered by users is accurately and efficiently processed.

increases the overall efficiency of the form submission process, leading to higher completion rates and better data quality for businesses.

As interesting as these features have been so far, I feel like development is really where I see the greatest benefits at least based on what AI can do today.

Everything from documentation to code generation to testing can all benefit from AI reducing the amount of time to get a new form created or updated.

AI tools are transforming software documentation by automatically generating in-code comments and external resources like user manuals and API guides. By analyzing code structure, AI ensures documentation is accurate, consistent, and up to date. This saves developers time, supports onboarding and helps maintain high code quality for more efficient, sustainable development.

Automated code allows AI to turn plain language descriptions into functional code, speeding up development and reducing errors. By handling repetitive tasks, AI lets developers focus on more complex, creative work like feature design and performance optimization. This boosts productivity and

By analyzing patterns and historical data, AI can accurately anticipate the information a user is likely to input, reducing the time and effort required to complete forms.

By dynamically linking form fields to the appropriate schema elements, AI reduces the need for manual configuration and minimizes the risk of errors.

This not only streamlines the data entry process but also enhances the overall reliability and consistency of the data being collected. As a result, businesses can achieve greater efficiency in data management and improve the accuracy of their data-driven decisions. This technology is particularly valuable in complex environments where forms and schemas frequently change, such as in enterprise applications, healthcare and financial services.

AI-driven testing and debugging are revolutionizing the software development lifecycle by automating the identification of bugs and

vulnerabilities. Unlike manual testing, which can be time-consuming and prone to human error, AI can systematically and efficiently scan code to detect issues with remarkable accuracy.

By leveraging machine learning algorithms, AI tools can learn from previous testing data to predict potential problem areas and prioritize them for review. This automation not only accelerates the testing process but also ensures a more thorough examination of the code, leading to higher quality software. Additionally, AI can continuously monitor code changes and perform regression testing, ensuring that new updates do not introduce new bugs. This capability significantly shortens release cycles, allowing developers to deploy updates and new features more rapidly. As a result, businesses can respond more quickly to market demands and maintain a competitive edge, all while delivering robust and reliable software products.

All this to be said, AI is a powerful tool and can help in many different areas of our business and it is critical that we continue to stay up to date with what possibilities are out there, but a word of caution to this tale, don’t try to boil the ocean. Yes, AI can do a lot for improving our forms — from streamlining business process, better user experience, to faster development times — but focus on one area first that will make a strong impact and still turn around results quickly to prove AI’s worth, rather than trying to take on all of these great tasks at once.

ANGELE TAYLOR is a seasoned business strategist and author specializing in the intersection of technology, innovation and organizational growth. With over a decade of experience in enterprise transformation and digital strategy, she brings a pragmatic yet forward-thinking perspective to her writing.

Angele’s work focuses on helping leaders navigate complex change, leverage emerging technologies, and drive sustainable value.

She frequently contributes to industry publications and speaks at conferences on digital transformation and leadership.

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BEYOND PERSONAS Creating dynamic content that adapts to individual customer preferences and behaviors

By Alan Burger

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SUBSCRIBE FOR FREE! Customer Communications Management (CCM) is in serious need of transformation. Today’s customers expect more than basic personalization — they demand relevance, empathy and immediate access to information that speaks directly to them at the right moment. We are at a point where static profiles and broad audience segments are being replaced by real-time, context-aware communications that adapt dynamically to everyone.

According to CCM analyst group, Aspire CCS, CCM is transitioning from a focus on document management and compliance toward a more dynamic component of Customer Experience Management (CXM). Here, communications become interactive touchpoints integrated into the customer journey, not just end-of-line outputs. The mission is clear: deliver adaptive, context-specific messaging that resonates in real time through dynamic content that evolves with each customer interaction.

Real-World Dynamic Content Applications Dynamic content is already redefining

core customer communications by replacing uniform templates with personalized, interactive engagements.

Consider these shifts: Statements & Bills Traditional: Generic monthly statements.

Dynamic: Interactive narratives offering personalized insights, spending trends and on-point educational content based on actual usage. Regulatory Notices Traditional: Standardized legal language for everyone.

Dynamic: Compliance-focused yet human-friendly explanations tailored to the customer’s understanding and previous interactions. Onboarding Materials Traditional: A one-size-fits-all welcome package.

Dynamic: Progressive delivery of information aligned with customer usage patterns and learning curves. Payment Reminders Traditional: Escalating, standardized notices.

Dynamic: Context-sensitive outreach that factors in payment

history, preferred channels and potential economic challenges. Policy Documents & Account Updates Traditional: Dense, schedule-driven communications.

Dynamic: Layered content and triggered messages driven by behavioral insights and predictive analytics.

This dynamic approach works as an added personalization layer, ensuring that whether via SMS, email or accessible PDFs, every customer touchpoint is tailored to be immediately relevant.

Using Digital Twins for Truly Dynamic Content Many companies use customer personas to create target segments for content. These personas have been useful for creating broad profiles, but today’s dynamic environment requires a new approach — digital twins. Creating digital versions of customers, means having living, real-time representations of each customer that is continuously updated based on behavioral data and engagement. Rather than relying on static demographics, digital twins

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reflect the customer’s current actions, preferences and even emotional states.

context-aware, creating content that adapts, rather than simply personalizes.

Data sources feeding these digital twins include: CCM Platform APIs: Automatically update based on customer communication preferences, engagement history and compliance triggers. Structured Data from CRM & Marketing: Information like transaction histories and campaign interactions. Unstructured Data Processed by AI: Insights via engagement through chat logs, emails and social media that reveal sentiment and intent.

2. Modular Architecture Enterprise CCM platforms are typically modular, meaning you can add dynamic components, like adaptive tone or real-time layout adjustments, to specific sections without a complete overhaul. This allows organizations to target high-impact areas first and scale improvements incrementally.

For example, two customers in the same demographic bracket might require very different tones: a formal approach for one, and a warmer, empathetic tone for the other. Digital twins capture these subtleties, enabling communications that truly resonate on an individual level, adapting in real-time behavioral signals rather than predetermined segments.

AI-Powered Personalization for Adaptive Content Incorporating AI into your CCM framework can enhance personalization through several avenues: Text Pre-processing: Fine-tuning emotional tone and clarity. Content Scoring: Assessing readability and sentiment. Layout Optimization: Adjusting visual presentation in real time for different channels or accessibility needs.

4. Testing and Simulation Before deploying dynamic communications broadly, simulate message delivery to see how different audiences might perceive your content. This testing is particularly useful for managing the sensitivity required in messages like claims denials or payment reminders, ensuring the final output aligns with your intended tone.

AI makes these enhancements scalable and incremental without disrupting your existing operations, allowing content to continuously learn and adapt from each customer interaction.

Addressing Integration Challenges

Making It All Work Within Your CCM Environment 1. Enhancing Existing Systems Fortunately, this transition doesn’t require starting from scratch. Many modern CCM systems already feature templating, content rules and preference management capabilities. The evolution comes from integrating and enhancing these tools to be more responsive and 24

3. Intelligent Data Use Your CRM, CDP and other behavioral systems hold a wealth of data. The challenge is shifting from static variables in bills for example, which includes names and balances to integrating behavioral cues like engagement history, sentiment, and support interactions. For example, a telecommunications bill content that adapts based on usage patterns: showing a customer who consistently exceeds their data allowance, personalized information about optimal plan upgrades.

This refined approach enables a much deeper level of personalization.

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Adopting dynamic, context-aware communication is not without hurdles: Data Privacy and Ethics: Managing sensitive data responsibly is paramount. Adherence to privacy regulations like GDPR and CCPA is essential, as is transparency with customers regarding how their data is used to enhance personalization. Technical Complexity: Integrating diverse systems can be challenging. A pragmatic approach is to start with a few high impact use cases, prove the benefits and then expand gradually.

Change Management: Transitioning from static to dynamic communication requires a significant shift in mindset.

Organizations need to train and adjust processes to adopt a modular, rule-based approach effectively. Measuring Success: Track critical metrics such as engagement, customer satisfaction, conversion rates and compliance to continuously improve your dynamic communication strategy.

Looking Forward: Dynamic Content as the Core of Customer Experience In the next few years, using dynamic content will become an almost invisible yet integral layer of every communication within CXM. The focus will shift from static, predetermined content paths to fluid content experiences that evolve with each interaction, ensuring every customer feels seen, heard and understood in through communications that reflect their reality.

The future of customer communication now goes beyond delivering information; it’s about creating content ecosystems that adapt and evolve alongside the customer journey. Brands that excel will treat customer communications as dynamic conversations rather than oneway broadcasts. This adaptive approach builds trust, drives engagement and ultimately sustains customer relationships in a competitive digital world.

Final Thought Reflect on one small change your team could make today to evolve from static segments to acknowledging each customer as a dynamic individual. In this era, the only persona that truly matters is the person behind the data.

ALAN BURGER is the CEO of InfoSlips North America and a recognized leader in customer communication and experience management (CCM > CXM). With a passion for transforming transactional documents into dynamic, personalized conversations, he brings decades of innovation to how organizations engage their customers. Alan is especially focused on leveraging AI to create seamless, just-in-time digital experiences.

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WHAT THE ANALYSTS SAY…

The Unified Content Model 2025: Rethinking the Content Supply Chain in the Era of Agentic AI In 2022, IDC developed a model for the content supply chain in a modern, digital-first enterprise — a Unified Content Model to orchestrate the content supply chain throughout the organization.

We believe this model remains crucial, and our team has updated it to reflect the harnessing of more unstructured data and the growing interest in agentic AI. Solutions architected according to the model will increase operational efficiency and reduce business risk by eliminating content silos as well as duplicative applications and platforms. And with GenAI agents and the promise of agentic workflow, an enterprise can now deploy “digital workers” to traverse the content supply chain, making decisions along the way to intelligently complete content-centric use cases.

Customer Service Journey: Mapping to Maximize Value In today’s customer service landscape, data-driven insights are essential for removing silos and enhancing customer service.

Traditional customer service journey mapping approaches often lack crossfunctional perspectives and rely on limited data sources. Download the Customer Service Journey Mapping Guide to discover: Common challenges and pitfalls in customer service journey mapping, key recommendations for scoping customer journey mapping efforts and the role of leadership in driving and sustaining journey mapping activities.

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SPARK Matrix: Customer Communications Management Q2 AI is revolutionizing how companies create, personalize and deliver customer communications, making interactions more relevant, timely and seamless. Leading vendors are already offering AI-powered content automation, hyper-personalization, omnichannel orchestration and workflow automation. At the same time, companies are actively building strong AI roadmaps, focusing on generative AI, predictive analytics and self-service automation. These advancements will help businesses enhance engagement, reduce communication friction and improve customer experience in the coming years.

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CX Journey Mapping Doesn’t Get Any Easier Than This Accelerating Digital Transformation and Adoption of Emerging Channels Aspire’s latest global research study has revealed accelerating digital transformation and adoption of emerging channels, even within sectors that have traditionally been slower to embrace these advancements. While we found that businesses are increasingly centralizing communications control, there are still opportunities for advancement, particularly when it comes to integrating inbound and outbound processes. As enterprises advance toward CX maturity, they are more likely to embrace digital process management, demonstrate a stronger commitment to accessibility, and invest in strategic improvement.

Finally, three-quarters of the organizations we surveyed believe AI will revolutionize CCM, and most are already implementing or testing generative AI solutions, primarily in the areas of process automation and content enhancement.

If you’re interested in learning more, please contact our Senior Research Analyst, Will Morgan at will. morgan@aspireccs.com.

You already know that journey mapping is a crucial customer experience (CX) tactic for harmonizing your CX vision with your brand. But do you know how to create a journey map that can act as a springboard for CX transformation — and customer loyalty?

Forrester has the answers, and we’re sharing them with you here in this e-book that’s 100% focused on what it takes to connect journey maps to CX initiatives. Download the e-book to learn how you can create agile journey maps that pinpoint CX opportunities and increase customer satisfaction — with practical advice you can use to ramp up quickly.

Shedding Light on Agentic AI in Banking It is early days for generative AI (GenAI) adoption at banks. And even earlier days for agentic AI adoption. Celent anticipates the current wave of GenAI adoption by banks will remain focused on advancing intelligent virtual assistants (IVAs) that respond to queries and requests from employees and customers. Celent believes that agent chaining (combining specialized agents to support a workflow or customer journey) will have profound impact in numerous areas of banking across lines of business. But it’s not too early to monitor agentic AI trends and ideate use cases. Celent recommends that bankers develop their AI/GenAI strategy with the anticipation that agentic AI-supported workflows will become a viable option in the next five years.

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What’s New Catch up on all the news, opinions, and current events happening around the industry.

What Is Holding Up AI Adoption for Businesses?

New EPAM Study Reveals Key Findings EPAM Systems, Inc. released its AI research report, “From Hype to Impact: How Enterprises Can Unlock Real Business Value with AI.” The report, based on a survey of 7,300 participants across nine countries and eight industries, examines the current state of AI adoption, challenges and opportunities for businesses looking to generate tangible business value from AI investments.

Infrrd’s Recognition as ‘IDP Innovator of the Year’ by Deep Analysis: A Look at the Best OCR & IDP Software The award was announced in Deep Analysis’ latest report, “Intelligent Document Processing Market Analysis 2025–2028: IDP at the Crossroads.” The report offers a comprehensive look at the evolution of Intelligent Document Processing (IDP), covering the industry’s progress through the four waves of development and providing an in-depth analysis of how IDP is advancing with AI.

Software Suites, AI Reshaping Customer Experience, ISG Says The ISG Buyers Guides™ for Customer Experience Management, produced by ISG Software Research, provide rankings and ratings of 29 software providers and their products for governing and optimizing customer experience across all channels. The ISG Buyers Guides™ for Customer Experience Management, produced by ISG Software Research, provide rankings and ratings of 29 software providers and their products for governing and optimizing customer experience across all channels.

Info-Tech Research Group Reveals the Leading ECM Solutions Transforming Content Management

Info-Tech Research Group has published its 2025 Emotional Footprint Report on leading Enterprise Content Management (ECM) solutions, recognizing the top five providers as Champions in the category.

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Think About It / DR. JOHN BATES, SER GROUP /

“WHILE PAPER MAY BE LOSING ITS RELEVANCE, DOCUMENTS REMAIN ESSENTIAL. PEOPLE STILL APPRECIATE THE TACTILE NATURE OF DOCUMENTS, AND IN SOME REGIONS—LIKE GERMANY, JAPAN, AND THE US— PAPER AND WET SIGNATURES ARE STILL COMMONPLACE.

48% OF RESPONDENTS TO IDC RESEARCH INDICATED THAT IMPROVING OPERATIONAL EFFICIENCIES IS THE TOP BUSINESS OBJECTIVE FOR CONTENT SERVICES INVESTMENTS.

/ JENNIFER RAML /

According to Gartner: 76% of companies see increased efficiency and cost savings from GenAI, 40% report improved customer response times; however, only 33% see a positive impact on customer engagement.

The most successful implementations happen when AI engineers and analysts work side-by-side with department managers and front-line staff, creating solutions that are both technically sound and practically useful. / ERIC RIZ /

With AI algorithms making increasingly impactful decisions — ranging from hiring processes and credit approvals to healthcare diagnostics and law enforcement — questions about fairness, bias and privacy violations continue to arise

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