By Byron Fernandez
TDCX Group Chief Information Officer

If 2024 taught us anything, it’s that trust is the foundation of every successful customer relationship. This year, 52% of consumers saw fake news. One bank estimated that 60% of fraud in the UK stemmed from social media platforms. In the US, 83 million online multiplayer gamers were exposed to hate and harassment. A single online travel agency removed 1.3 million fake reviews from its platform. Only 38% of Gen Z customers trust travel companies, while consumers in the US said only 3% of companies prioritize their needs.

On the other side of the fence, half of businesses worldwide have experienced fraud involving audio and video deepfakes, losing an average of US$450,000. And while nearly 90% of customer experience (CX) financial leaders believe that their customers trust how their data is protected, only 60% of customers do.

As customer experiences become more augmented, adaptive, and agentic, how trust and safety are built, maintained, and measured will also evolve. They will move beyond transactional interactions into deeper relationships rooted in authenticity and accountability, and reinforced with technology.

Trust, safety, and accountability as CX’s success factors

Customers no longer take a brand’s assurances at face value. For 97% of consumers worldwide, fake reviews make them lose trust in the brand. Across the US, Europe, and Australia, 72% of consumers want new standards on how the retail industry combats fake reviews. The US Federal Trade Commission’s ban on fake online reviews, which carry penalties of up to US$51,744 per fake review, is just the beginning of regulatory crackdown on these trust-eroding activities.

Trust also doesn’t operate in a vacuum. Customers are increasingly wielding their heightened awareness and collective influence to hold brands more accountable in resolving issues and upholding ethical business practices. For instance, 76% of travelers want more sustainable options. Globally, 42% of travelers want accommodation reviews upfront. Nearly half of customers prefer fully flexible or refundable options, and 60% expect detailed product information. For them to trust AI agents, 67% want them to be more humanlike — empathetic, creative, friendly.

Accountability also means swift action relayed through transparent communication. As customers demand more visibility and ownership, businesses will increasingly need to explain not just the resolution but the effort behind it. This was how a major US airline weathered the CX storm when 17,000 of its flights were delayed. The airline even went on to top their category in customer satisfaction this year. 

Accountability and authenticity have a direct impact on the bottom line, too. Consumers spend more at companies they trust — nearly half buy more and 28% even pay a premium. Conversely, nearly 70% abandon brands they don’t trust.

Fraud protection and detection capabilities as CX differentiators

Accountability and fraud detection are two sides of the same coin. Accountability translates to proactive measures and fraud detection is its most visible application. The measurable outcome? Customer satisfaction. E-commerce leaders in the US agree: 93% reported improved CX after integrating antifraud technologies in their online stores.

Fraudsters aren’t slowing down, so businesses can’t afford to either. Corporate banks, for example, are doubling down on new or even nontraditional ways to make sure payments reach the right people. By 2025, 60% of corporate banks will introduce additional verification methods, such as confirming payees, to curb fraud and enable faster and safer payments for businesses and customers.

Paradigm shifts in technology and CX are also reshaping fraud-fighting efforts. In 2024, deepfake emails and AI-generated phishing schemes left business leaders grappling with the scale of the threat. Deepfakes alone reportedly accounted for 40% of biometric fraud this year. Half of decision-makers are also sounding alarms over GenAI-enabled fraud, while 40% worry about misinformation’s ripple effects across industries. 

We also tend to think of fraud as an external threat, but that’s not the full picture. The same tools that fraudsters use to target companies from the outside are just as damaging inside. For example, an employee with privileged access can use a deepfake generator to fabricate a senior manager’s voice or an identification document to greenlight unauthorized transactions. Without the right safeguards in place, this kind of insider threat can fly under the radar until it’s too late.  

This is how AI-powered defense can respond to AI-driven threats with equal force. Organizations can augment their fraud protection and detection capabilities with AI to analyze behavioral patterns and flag suspicious activities. Inside the company’s walls, this could be detecting employees accessing or uploading files outside their usual routines or attempting to bypass approvals. Outside, it could involve identifying unexpected data transfers, unusual login locations, or interactions that deviate from the customer’s typical behaviors.

Still, AI can’t do the job alone. I’ve seen businesses put all their faith in tools without realizing that the human element is just as important. This is how TDCX’s human-in-the-loop approach makes a difference. It doesn’t just apply to our AI solutions, but to the people who use them. With deepfake generators becoming more accessible, we recognize the need for our employees — and not just the IT and security teams — to recognize these threats and understand how technology can help. By fostering a culture of awareness and accountability, we further help our clients strengthen their defenses from within, with technology and human vigilance working hand in hand. 

Human-supervised automation for efficiency with a personal touch

The same approach to fraud can be applied to AI and automation in CX. They help achieve efficiency and scalability, but they can’t operate in isolation. The human touch remains irreplaceable — the ability to build trust, adapt with empathy, and ensure accountability. We’ll see more businesses finding the right balance with supervised automation, where human agents manage AI-powered tools to meet customer expectations while reinforcing operational control. 

Supervised automation is where trust, accountability, and innovation converge. This year shed light on automation’s shortcomings. Unsupervised bots churned out irrelevant and inappropriate responses, while AI-driven chatbots, left to their own devices, hallucinated and ended up in legal trouble with customers. Human supervision adds accountability by serving as a buffer to keep AI-driven tools from going off-course. Indeed, human involvement will broaden and require new kinds of collaboration as AI-powered automation becomes more capable. By 2028, for instance, 60% of CX teams will have new, dedicated roles for systematically managing their use. 

Explainability will be the linchpin of trust for this collaboration. By 2027, 80% of critical decisions made by AI will need human oversight, bolstered by visual tools. While a visual analytics dashboard explaining how the AI system reached its conclusion might slow some things down, it’s a trade-off that will help bridge gaps between convoluted algorithms and the people they support. This focus on transparency will pay off: By 2028, businesses utilizing AI governance platforms will achieve a 30% boost in customer trust and a 25% improvement in regulatory compliance.

Keeping humans in the loop also means empowering people. Many organizations learned that their efforts to digitally transform and adopt AI had outpaced employee readiness. This is why nearly half of leaders focused their technology investments on enhancing their workforce’s digital skills. 

TDCX bridges the gaps between people and their work through upskilling and well-being initiatives. Our knowledge transfer programs have been integral for two social media platforms — one focused on scaling in Southeast Asia, the other seeking an information security partner for multilingual content moderation. Continuous learning sessions keep employees sharp and adaptable, while our AI-powered platform accelerates their speed to proficiency. By empowering our people to work confidently alongside AI-powered tools, we foster a mindset where technology becomes an ally, not a challenge.

Empowering customers, on the other hand, means enabling them to understand how AI and automation are used and where humans step in. Almost half of surveyed organizations doing so, for example, already improved their reputation among customers.

Tomorrow’s CX as an ecosystem of trust and safety

These trends and predictions are not isolated milestones. Together, they will form an ecosystem where technology doesn’t just fix problems but deepens relationships in every part of the customer journey. For businesses, the challenge and risk won’t be falling behind technology. It’s failing to demonstrate that these innovations serve a purpose — empowering and safeguarding customers. Their confidence won’t be earned with marketing gimmicks or technological promises, but on actions that demonstrate responsibility. 

At TDCX, we believe that trust is built on actions that customers can see and understand. Our ongoing investments in research and development for fraud protection and detection focus on creating smarter solutions that adapt to emerging risks and evolving customer expectations. TDCX is uniquely poised to help companies embed accountability into their operations — refining automated workflows, moderating content, and mitigating fraud, to name a few. With our experts at TDCX AI and our human CX agents equipped with data-powered innovations, companies can weave accountability and innovation into their business fabric as they navigate tomorrow’s connected, trust-based economy.