Machine Customers: How AI that buys is changing everything

Machine customers are here. AI agents, autonomous procurement systems, and agentic commerce platforms are buying billions in products without human intervention - and they don't respond to brand storytelling.

Visa and Mastercard's AI agents shop for customers. Walmart's AI makes million-dollar purchasing decisions in seconds. ChatGPT Agent books holidays. Consumer advocate agents negotiate you out of gym contracts. These machine customers evaluate clear information, consistent performance, and verifiable claims faster than any human ever could.

For CX professionals, customer experience leaders, and business executives, this book reveals how to win when your customers are machines.

Drawing on exclusive interviews with Don Scheibenreif (Gartner's leading machine customer authority) and Bruce Temkin (creator of industry-standard CX metrics), plus experts from Salesforce, Qualtrics, and other industry leaders, Machine Customers: The Evolution Has Begun provides the strategic playbook early adopters are using to build competitive advantages.

You'll get practical frameworks and implementation tools:

• The Machine Customer Experience (MCX) Strategy Map
• Five distinct machine customer types and how to serve each
• Step-by-step customer journey redesign for hybrid human-machine audiences
• 30-60-90 day implementation roadmaps for leaders
• How to build an MCX operating system in your organization

Author and CX Futurist Katja Forbes shows you how to:

• Make your business discoverable to AI agents and agentic commerce platforms
• Design machine-readable value propositions that win algorithmic selection
• Navigate machine trust, ethics, and transparency requirements
• Build algorithmic loyalty systems that lock out competitors
• Excel in the hybrid reality where you serve both emotional humans and logical machines simultaneously

The trillion-dollar transformation is happening now. The businesses that understand this evolution first will dominate their industries. Those that don't will become irrelevant.

Foreword by Don Scheibenreif, Distinguished VP Analyst, Gartner

Katja Forbes is a customer experience futurist, business strategist, and keynote speaker recognised globally for her insights into the intersection of AI, design, and human behaviour. With more than 20 years' experience helping leading organisations navigate emerging technologies, she has advised global brands on experience transformation, data ethics and innovation leadership. Katja is a sought-after voice at international conferences and a passionate advocate for designing futures where technology serves both business and humanity. She divides her time between Singapore and Australia.