Customer success is at a crossroads. The rapid advancement of artificial intelligence, ongoing organizational shifts, and evolving success metrics are transforming the field in ways that demand attention. If you're a customer success leader, you’re likely facing a mix of excitement and uncertainty as these changes take shape.

Based on The State of Customer Success 2025 report, this blog highlights some of the top challenges and trends shaping the future of customer success—and what you need to do to stay ahead.

For the complete predictions, insights, and findings, read the full report in the TSIA Portal.

A Look Back at 2024: The Challenges That Set the Stage for 2025

Last year brought significant challenges to customer success teams. Tight budgets and cost-cutting measures forced companies to rethink their approach. The focus shifted back to the basics: reassessing charters, refining segmentation strategies, and ensuring proper funding for customer success—with a focus on monetizing customer success offers.

At the same time, discussions around AI’s potential in customer success grew louder. While few companies fully embraced AI in 2024, its possibilities—from predictive analytics to automated engagement—will pave the way for a transformative shift in 2025.

Related: Put AI To Work for Customer Success

The Top 3 Challenges for Customer Success in 2025

Looking ahead, three significant challenges will define the state of customer success:

• AI’s slow but inevitable integration into customer success.
• The ongoing struggle with organizational alignment.
• A shift away from traditional success metrics like NPS.

Let’s dive into these challenges and explore what they mean for your organization.

1. AI in Customer Success: From Hesitation to Adoption

AI is no longer a distant concept—it’s here, reshaping how businesses engage with customers. Yet, despite its potential, many customer success teams have been slow to adopt AI-driven solutions. In 2024, nearly 60% of organizations had not invested in AI for customer success. That’s changing in 2025.

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More companies recognize AI’s ability to scale customer engagement across all segments—particularly in low-touch and digital-led models. AI-powered solutions can help your team:

• Analyze adoption patterns to predict churn before it happens.
• Automate routine tasks so customer success managers (CSMs) can focus on high-value interactions.
• Deliver personalized, real-time insights that improve customer outcomes.

If your organization hasn’t embraced AI yet, now is the time. Companies that invest in AI-driven customer success will set themselves apart with more efficient, proactive, and scalable engagement strategies.

2. Organizational Chaos: The Ongoing Struggle for Alignment

Customer success has grappled with structural shifts for years, and the uncertainty continues into 2025. Many companies are still struggling with fundamental questions like:

• Where should customer success sit within the organization?
• Should it align with sales, a chief customer officer, or an independent function?
• How do we define the difference between customer success and customer experience?

Instead of relying on research-backed best practices, some companies make hasty organizational changes that undermine efficiency. This has led to issues like:

• Merging customer success with other departments (e.g., support, professional services, sales).
• Creating “unicorn” roles—positions that blend multiple functions, but are unsustainable in the long run.
• Misaligned charters that blur the lines between proactive and reactive customer engagement.

One of the most concerning trends is the increasing pressure to align customer success with sales. While this might make sense from a revenue perspective, it often leads to inflated compensation structures, unclear role definitions, and an erosion of customer success’ true purpose: helping customers achieve value through adoption.

To thrive in 2025, your organization must take a data-driven approach to alignment. Understanding where customer success drives the most value will help you make informed decisions, rather than reactionary ones.

3. The Shift in Customer Success Metrics: Beyond NPS

The Net Promoter Score (NPS) has been the gold standard for measuring customer satisfaction for years. But in 2025, that’s changing. Companies are moving away from NPS in favor of more predictive and outcome-driven metrics like:

• Adoption metrics: These go beyond basic usage stats and focus on how deeply customers engage with your product.
• The KORE Score: A new Voice of the Customer (VoC) metric developed by TSIA, designed to provide a more comprehensive view of customer health and satisfaction.

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In 2024, TSIA’s benchmarking data showed a 6% increase in adoption framework telemetry, signaling a growing interest in measuring actual customer engagement. However, many companies still rely on outdated success metrics that don’t accurately predict retention or expansion opportunities.

If your organization relies solely on NPS, it’s time to rethink its approach. The shift to adoption and outcome-driven metrics will provide more precise insights into customer success and long-term growth potential.

Related: The State of Customer Success 2025

Emerging Trends in Customer Success for 2025

Beyond these three core challenges, several emerging trends will shape the future of customer success:

1. Over-Compensating CSMs Due to Misalignment

Many companies overpay customer success managers (CSMs), especially when customer success is placed under sales or chief revenue officers. While this might benefit employee retention, it often creates unsustainable cost structures. Aligning customer success correctly within the organization will help prevent compensation inflation.

2. The Rise of Digital-Led Customer Success

AI and automation are making digital-led customer success models more viable than ever. Instead of focusing solely on high-touch engagement, companies are finding ways to scale experiences through self-service portals, in-app guidance, and workflow automation.

3. The Fight for Ownership of Customer Data

As the number of customer success tools grows, so does the struggle over customer data ownership. There is true power in owning customer data and taking action to provide a positive customer experience. Many organizations are consolidating their tech stacks under customer success operations to streamline data insights and customer engagement strategies.

Related: The Business Case for Customer Success: Challenges, Value, and Key Metrics

How To Prepare for the Future of Customer Success

The customer success landscape is evolving fast. To ensure your organization stays ahead, consider these key actions:

• Invest in AI now. Don’t wait until your competitors have already gained an advantage.
• Use research-backed insights to structure your team. Organizational alignment decisions should be based on data, not trends.
• Move beyond NPS. If your success metrics don’t provide accurate predictions, it’s time to adopt new frameworks like the KORE Score.
• Prioritize digital engagement. AI-driven and self-service models will be essential for scaling customer success.

Success in 2025 will not​​ come from reacting to trends, but ​​proactively shaping them. Whether integrating AI, refining your organizational structure, or adopting new success metrics, your actions will determine your future success.