Here’s a look back at the Customer Success (CS) content that defined the year.
All year long, you gravitated toward the content that helped you scale smarter, understand AI more deeply, and keep customers at the center of your strategy. With the planning season in full swing, let’s look back at the themes that defined this year.
Here’s your 2025 Customer Success content rundown.
The Breakout Theme of the Year: Autonomous Agents
Autonomous agents were a gamechanger for CS leaders in 2025 because they finally made it possible to treat every customer like your best customer, even the ones buried deep in your long-tail. In our webinar, Autonomous Agents: Agents That Reach the Customers You Can’t, Prem Parameswaran, CTO at Gainsight, and Teresa Anania, Chief Customer Officer at Sophos, explored how autonomous agents move beyond surfacing insights to actively working toward goals like adoption recovery and renewal support.
Through real examples, including adoption agents that investigate usage drops, analyze timelines, and surface root causes before triggering the right recovery play, the conversation grounded agentic AI in what actually works. Teresa shared a practitioner’s perspective on deploying agents responsibly, with a strong emphasis on trust, human oversight, and meeting customers where they are. Leaders walked away with a clearer picture of how to introduce autonomy thoughtfully, extend their team’s reach, and protect the customer experience without sacrificing control or relationships.
Hit play to learn more about:
- Automating adoption and renewals
- Scaling low-touch CS
- Helping CSMs reclaim time for relationship-driven work.
The “On Repeat” Topic: Human vs. AI Responsibilities
Our webinar, When to Tag in AI—And When to Lead With Your CSM became a go-to for CS teams overwhelmed by expanding books of business, administrative clutter, and the constant pressure to be everywhere at once. Brent Krempges, Gainsight’s Chief Customer Officer, walked through a clear, practical approach to deciding what AI should handle and where human expertise remains unmatched.
He explored how AI plays different roles across long-tail, tech-touch, and high-touch segments—and how teams can implement it without creating chaos or losing the human connection that defines customer success. With real-world examples and starter frameworks, this webinar helped teams reduce noise, focus their efforts, and scale with intention.
Stream this if you’re interested in:
- Figuring out where AI fits (and doesn’t)
- Offloading admin work
- Scaling smarter while preserving the human touch.
The Deep Cut Everyone Came Back To: How Gainsight’s CCO Uses AI to Stay Ahead on Retention
Our ebook, A Day in the Life of an AI-Equipped Chief Customer Officer offered an inside look at how AI has become a strategic companion in Gainsight CCO Brent Krempges’ everyday leadership workflow. It breaks down how he uses real-time insights to spot churn signals early, identify expansion opportunities, and personalize engagement without adding manual effort to the team.
The ebook also reveals how automation supports operational discipline, improves forecasting, and drives more confident, data-backed decision-making. Readers appreciated the tactical, grounded perspective on what AI can actually do today to improve customer outcomes and revenue.
Queue this up for tactics on:
- Spotting risk early
- Scaling personalization
- Making faster, more revenue-driving decisions with AI
The Fan-Favorite Benchmark: Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Platforms
The Gartner® Magic Quadrant for Customer Success Platforms 2025 offered CS leaders a practical, big-picture view of a category that continues to evolve. Gainsight was named a Leader in the report, which evaluates platforms across Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision, giving teams a clear framework for comparing options and understanding how the market is shaping up.
For many organizations, the Magic Quadrant served as a useful reference when aligning stakeholders, navigating vendor evaluations, and making the case for Customer Success investment. It provides a market-wide snapshot of which capabilities matter most today and how customer success platforms are adapting to meet new challenges.
Dig in if you’re responsible for:
- Building a business case for CS investment
- Comparing platforms
- Aligning leadership around purpose-built technology
The Unskippable [Un]Churned Episode: Scaling With AI Agents
Our [Un]Churned episode, How to Scale Customer Success with AI Agents ft. LeeRon Yahalomi (Aligned), explored what it really takes to scale CS with AI agents, beyond the buzzwords and surface-level hype. Host Josh Schachter, SVP, Strategy & Market Development at Gainsight, sat down with Leeron Yahalomi, CEO at Aligned, to break down how agents are changing the way CS teams prioritize work, manage growing books of business, and deliver consistent value across segments.
The conversation focused on practical decisions CS leaders face as they introduce more autonomy, including where agents create the most leverage, how to maintain trust with customers, and how to balance automation with human judgment. It offered a grounded look at what agentic AI means for day-to-day CS operations and long-term strategy alike.
Tune in if you’re looking to:
- Scale Customer Success with AI agents responsibly
- Understand where agents fit into real CS workflows
- Balance automation with human-led relationships
Closing the Year and Looking Ahead
Looking back at the content that resonated most in 2025, a clear pattern emerged. Customer Success teams leaned into AI as a true partner, not a replacement, using it to scale outcomes, surface risk earlier, and bring more clarity to every stage of the customer journey. The common thread across it all was balance. Smarter automation paired with real human judgment and empathy.
If any of these moments slipped past you, now’s the perfect time to press play. And as you start mapping out 2026, think of this as your playlist for building a CS program that scales, stays human, and keeps customers front and center.
The post The Content That Defined 2025: AI, Retention, and Staying Human appeared first on Gainsight Software.