From a distance, 2025 can look a lot like the years before it.
More AI. More tools. More expectations. More competition.
But when you zoom in on what actually happened this year - especially around Black Friday and the period leading into the New Year - some clear shifts start to appear.
My observations are based on our daily work with more than 250 webshops, with a strong focus on technology-driven customer service.
For the past few years, AI has been discussed mostly in terms of potential.
What it could do.
What it might enable.
In 2025, that conversation shifted.
More online shoppers now expect to solve simple issues immediately - without waiting in a phone or mail queue for a human response.
Order status, delivery updates, basic changes, simple returns. Customers know this can be handled swiftly, and any delays will feel unnecessary.
“Human-to-human dialogue is valuable!”
I hear this a lot, but think about it this way: We like the dialogue with a human, but we like fast customer service more. Nobody prefers waiting until tomorrow to receive a tracking code from a human instead of getting it today from a (friendly) chatbot.
→ When 71% of consumers prefer using a chatbot to check the delivery status of an order, the discussion is not about technology but about meeting expectations.
What we have seen this year is also that AI implementation for us as businesses is not technically complicated. OpenAI, Gemini and others did the complicated stuff. AI implementation is about understanding user journeys, data access, and change management.
Our teams created the most value when they focused on strong data foundations, user journeys and the handover from tech to humans when needed.
That is where AI started to make a real difference.
If AI set new expectations, peak season tested whether organisations could live up to them.
Black Friday and the weeks that followed made one thing very clear:
Automation, data, and process maturity matter A LOT after the campaign banners come down.
Across clients and markets, customer service volume does not climax during Black Friday itself. It ramps up afterwards - often reaching its highest sustained level in the first full week following the campaign and staying elevated deep into December.
Orders are placed during campaigns.
Trust is evaluated afterwards.
What 2025 reinforced for me is that peak season success is no longer defined by how well you convert demand, but by how well you absorb it.
Stepping back, a few patterns stand out more clearly than before:
What we are taking further into 2026
We have also seen that automated replies in chatbots and e-mails can create value when properly integrated and aligned with branding. Most importantly, we see a shift from button-based chatbots to generative chatbots to solve customer issues fast and smart, not redirect customers to other channels.
My quick do’s and don’ts (looking ahead):
Don’t: Send customers to static help pages or external links.
Do: Move towards structured flows - complaint submission, order status, and tracking -that collect the right information upfront and return clear, human-readable answers.
Don’t: Use generic chatbot features disconnected from product data or customer context.
Do: Build chatbot experiences grounded in your own data, with personalised greetings, guided flows, and practical tools that actually solve problems.
That is why features and add-ons will be a major focus for us in 2026, building on what we have learned.
There will also be a Black Friday this year, and a Christmas. Customers follow the trends, expectations keep changing, and we will continue to meet them.
Here’s to 2026.