Why AI Changes the Economics of CX for SMBs

A note from our CEO:

I was just asked for a quote for a magazine.

The topic was around the growing split amongst CX leaders over whether to support small bus or focus on larger enterprises. Some vendors are now investing in SMB-focused tools for CX while others ate stepping towards higher-profit enterprise clients.

My take? Old CX stacks were bult around the assumption that there would be heavy implementation requirements, long contracts, and high-touch support. The math of these kinds of models simply will not work for SMBs.

What changed? AI. It may sound cliché to jump to AI, but hear me out:

The newer CX platforms are AI-native (or even AI-forward) and they flip the equation: services are replaced by automation, workflows are replaced by agentic AI, value delivery is expected in days rather than quarters… 

What does this mean? It means it is not enterprise v SMB. It is legacy CX platforms v AI-first CX platforms.

Those vendors making investments now understand that SMBs can be viewed as the proving ground for the next generation of CX platforms and features. 

SMBs are not being abandoned. They are being fired. They are being fired by legacy economics in the world of CX. Ai is here now and it is the first thing I have seen that makes service SMBs profitable rather than painful.