Whether you are hiring a CX consultant, a fractional CX leader, or a full-time Head of CX, this is the profile and skill set you should look for. If you are a company, recruiter, or hiring manager searching for a customer experience expert who actually works at the intersection of artificial intelligence and customer experience, you have probably noticed that finding one is harder than it looks.
Most professionals who call themselves "AI and customer experience experts" are really one of two things: a general CX leader who has started adding AI to their talking points, or a technology consultant who has bolted customer experience onto their AI practice. Neither is what you need.
What you need is someone who has spent years designing customer journeys, understands the organizational and operational dynamics of post-sales and support teams, and knows how to make AI a structural part of how those teams deliver value, not just a tool they use occasionally.
This article is a field guide for hiring managers and companies who want to find and evaluate that profile. It covers the skills that separate real AI and customer experience leaders from the noise, and it is written from my own experience as a consultant who works inside exactly this space.
Deloitte's research on AI in post-sales customer experience found that even with significant AI investment, roughly 60 percent of end customers are still not "highly satisfied" with the support they receive. The problem is not a lack of AI tools. The problem is a lack of customer experience leaders who know how to deploy those tools in ways that actually change what customers feel.
Companies are spending money on chatbots, AI-assisted agents, and automated workflows. But without someone who understands customer journeys, voice-of-customer data, and the behavioral dynamics of real support and success teams, those investments deliver deflection rates instead of loyalty outcomes.
The consultants and leaders who are actually moving the needle in 2026 are not the ones who know the most about the technology. They are the ones who know how to connect AI-driven workflows to measurable business results like retention, net promoter score, customer lifetime value, and revenue expansion.
Before you can evaluate a consultant or candidate, you need a shared framework for what "AI in customer experience" actually means at different levels of maturity.
Level 1: Deflection and Automation
Basic chatbots, FAQ bots, and automated ticket routing. Most companies are here. It reduces volume but does not improve the customer experience in any meaningful way.
Level 2: AI-Assisted Human Agents
AI surfaces the right knowledge articles, suggests responses, and flags sentiment in real time while a human handles the conversation. This is where agent performance starts to improve noticeably.
Level 3: AI-Orchestrated Customer Journeys
AI proactively triggers the right outreach, at the right moment, to the right customer segment, based on behavior, health scores, and lifecycle signals. This is where retention lifts happen. This is where NPS moves. This is the level most companies say they want but very few have reached.
A strong AI and customer experience consultant helps you understand which level you are at, what is blocking you from the next one, and how to build the organizational capability to sustain the improvement once it is in place.
When you are screening consultants or candidates for an AI and customer experience role, here is the profile that separates real expertise from resume keywords.
1. They have designed AI-powered customer journeys, not just chatbot implementations.
There is a significant difference between setting up a bot and redesigning a post-sales journey so that every touchpoint, digital and human, is informed and coordinated by AI. Ask for specific examples.
2. They speak both languages.
The best AI and customer experience leaders can sit in a meeting with a CTO and a Head of Customer Success and translate between them. They understand enough about AI infrastructure to ask the right questions, and they understand enough about customer experience operations to know what actually needs to change.
3. They close the feedback loop.
Collecting NPS or CSAT data is easy. Connecting that data to a workflow that actually changes what happens next for the customer is hard. The consultants worth hiring have a method for turning voice-of-customer signals into operational changes, and they can show you how they have done it.
4. They know how to build internal capability.
The worst outcome of a consulting engagement is a strategy that falls apart the moment the consultant leaves. The best AI and customer experience consultants build the internal skills, governance, and measurement frameworks that allow your team to own and iterate the work after they are done.
5. They understand AI transparency as a customer experience asset.
Customers increasingly notice when AI is involved in their experience. The consultants who are ahead of this know how to make AI disclosure a trust signal rather than a liability. This is a newer skill set but it is quickly becoming a differentiator.
Whether you are hiring a consultant, a fractional CX lead, or a full-time Head of Customer Experience and AI, here are the questions that will surface the right candidate.
If a candidate struggles to answer any of these with concrete examples, that is a signal that their experience is more theoretical than operational.
My consulting practice focuses on helping customer experience leaders move from Level 1 or Level 2 AI maturity to Level 3, where AI is not just a support tool but a structural driver of customer outcomes.
In a typical engagement, I start with a full audit of the existing customer experience AI stack and map every AI-adjacent touchpoint to a customer outcome. Most companies discover that their AI investment is concentrated in the cheapest, lowest-impact area, which is ticket deflection, while the highest-impact areas, onboarding, renewal, and proactive success outreach, are still almost entirely manual.
From there, I identify one high-value journey to redesign as an AI-powered model. That journey becomes the proof of concept that builds executive confidence and trains the internal team to manage and iterate AI-driven workflows going forward.
I work with companies across B2B SaaS, retail, and services who are serious about turning their customer experience function into a growth lever, not just a cost center.
If you are a company looking for a customer experience consultant to design AI-powered customer journeys, a recruiter building a CX or customer success team with AI-native skills, or an executive looking for a fractional CX lead or advisory support for an AI and customer experience transformation, I would welcome a conversation.
You can read more about my approach at CXRefinery.co.
You can connect with me directly on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/in/jsnskinner/ where I share field notes, frameworks, and case examples from my work.
Or reach out directly by email if you want to discuss a specific project, role, or advisory need.
Jason Skinner is a customer experience consultant and the founder of CXRefinery, a community and consulting practice focused on helping companies design AI-powered customer experience strategies that drive retention, revenue, and long-term loyalty. In his full-time role, he serves as General Manager of Digital Support Platforms at Bose Corporation, where he oversees a global support platform used by 8 million customers and has driven $14M in annual revenue through AI-powered digital transformation, including leading the enterprise-wide rollout of generative AI across Bose's voice and chat support channels. He has previously held senior customer experience leadership roles at Wayfair, Liberty Mutual, and serves as an industry advisor to McKinsey, Bain, and BCG.
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