Consumers in Asia/Pacific to Spend $32 billion on Programmatic Shopping via AI Agents by 2028, According to IDC

In the report, IDC FutureScape: Worldwide Future of Customer Experience 2025 Predictions — Asia/Pacific (Excluding Japan) Implications, IDC stresses the integral role of AI to provide highly personalized experiences for customers to help the region’s businesses differentiate themselves from competitors. This is highlighted in the prediction that by 2028, consumers will spend $32 billion via AI agents that run independently on their smartphones to programmatically shop for goods, services, and considered purchases. CX executives will adjust their business strategies based on such initiatives and seek to incorporate a more AI-infused approach in their campaigns.

Abhishek Kumar, Associate Research Director, Head of AP Enterprise Applications & CX, IDC Asia/Pacific.

“Tech-driven CX enhancements have always been AP retailers’ top go-to differentiator in a highly commoditized market with indistinguishable products and services,” said Abhishek Kumar, associate research director, head of AP Enterprise Applications & CX, IDC Asia/Pacific. “A key challenge for them is to refocus IT and digital initiatives to improve operational efficiencies. Many look to AI to modernize and unify their underlying data infrastructure, breaking down existing organizational silos, moving towards a holistic experience-orchestrated (X-O) approach that creates meaningful value for all key stakeholders and not just customers.”

This AI pivot for CX means truly integrating AI into every aspect of business operations to drive growth and stay competitive. Below are some of the most urgent business and technology trends that CX executives must pay attention to in tapping the huge potential of AI in CX.

CX Pricing Refactoring: IDC predicts by 2028, 40% of CX vendors will shift to new, outcome-based, pricing models making the value exchange for their clients more transparent and improving the monetization of their AI investment.

AI Governance Shift: IDC predicts, as AI implementations scale, human-in-the-loop approaches will be eliminated, resulting in 25% of CX teams creating new, dedicated roles for the systemic governance of AI by 2028.

Customer-Centric Revenue Models: IDC predicts that seeing value in referral growth and in controlling costs, by 2028, 30% of A2000 companies will have restructured and aligned their customer-facing teams under a CRO to optimize CX outcomes.

Autonomous Proactive Self-Service: IDC predicts by 2030, 20% of B2C A2000 companies will enable real-time IoT-product data to notify customers of future failures, issue resolution recommendations, and help customers self-solve proactively.

Each year, IDC releases its top technology predictions at worldwide, regional and country levels through its IDC FutureScape Reports and gives a crystal ball view of what is ahead for the rapidly changing IT industry. These predictions have been used to shape the strategies and business objectives of technology leaders and business executives in the next 1-5 years. All the predictions stated here cover Asia/Pacific implications.

To learn more, visit: www.idc.com