From customer experience (CX) to total experience (TX): the next evolution in commerce

What is total experience?

In 2025, it feels like we’re all on the edge of something transformative. Consumers are spending, but they’re doing so thoughtfully, balancing trust with caution and cutting back on nonessential purchases. Meanwhile, the global stage is shifting beneath us, creating both new challenges and unexpected opportunities.

For businesses, it’s clear that the old ways of connecting just won’t cut it anymore. Today, people — whether they’re customers, employees, or business partners — crave experiences that feel personal, genuine, and seamless at each step.

Enter generative AI — a powerful new tool that’s reshaping how we engage and connect. By tapping into generative AI, companies can not only predict and meet needs but personalize experiences at a whole new level, creating moments that feel crafted for each individual. This is where total experience (TX) comes to life, blending the power of technology with the human touch, transforming each interaction into a lasting, meaningful connection.

TX isn’t just another trend — it’s a strategy that brings everything together. It unites customer experience (CX), partner experience (PX), employee experience (EX), and brand experience (BX) into one smooth, connected approach that makes each interaction feel intentional and meaningful.

Imagine ABC Retail Company, a retail brand that redefines the shopping journey through total experience. For customers like David, ABC Retail Company’s app makes shopping smarter. In March, it notified him that the puffer jacket he wanted — priced at $120 last October and projected to rise to $130 next October — was now nearly 50% off. With this timely tip, David purchased it at a great price, avoiding peak-season costs and feeling confident in his decision (CX).

For ABC Retail Company employees, this proactive approach simplifies their work while offering opportunities for technical upskilling. Off-season sales reduce the stress of peak-season chaos, and tools like real-time inventory and analytics can help employees offer personalized advice and develop new skills in tech-enabled customer engagement. With fewer last-minute issues to manage, employees can focus on creating better customer experiences, making their roles more rewarding and impactful (EX).

For ABC Retail Company, transparency builds trust. Helping customers save money and empowering business partners with solutions to manage demand, positions the brand as a reliable and innovative leader. It strengthens loyalty, satisfaction, and reputation, reinforcing ABC Retail Company’s commitment to customer-first practices and industry-leading solutions (BX).

For ABC Retail Company’s business partner, the integration into the brand’s advanced technology and AI-driven app delivers measurable benefits. As a third-party provider of the jacket, the business partner connects their product catalog via punchout or API, enabling them to upload future pricing strategies, like a 50% markdown in March. ABC Retail Company’s AI analyzes customer behavior and sales trends to recommend favorable pricing windows, making sure the product sells faster and avoids accumulating unsold inventory. This approach reduces warehousing costs and improves profitability, giving the business partner greater control and efficiency (PX).

This isn’t just about selling jackets — it’s about creating a seamless, rewarding experience for everyone involved, and ABC Retail Company is leading the way.

1. Geopolitical and economic volatility

With global tensions and economic shifts, brands should differentiate by building trust and resilience. Total experience (TX) enables companies to deploy scalable, secure solutions that can streamline customer journeys and reduce friction, making brand loyalty less vulnerable to external shocks.

2. AI-powered personalization

Generative AI is transforming interactions, enabling predictive support, tailored recommendations, and contextual insights at scale. In B2C, TX leverages AI to deliver highly personalized experiences tailored to individual consumers, while in B2B, personalization is focused on team, group, or organization-level needs. This approach allows organizations to create anticipatory and data-driven engagements across customer and employee journeys, enhancing both retention and conversion rates.

3. Shift in employee and business partner expectations

Employees and business partners expect seamless access to data and collaborative tools that align with business goals. TX brings unified portals, self-service capabilities, and real-time dashboards to help streamline workflows, enabling business partners to integrate effortlessly and employees to work with greater autonomy and efficiency.

4. Demand for omni-channel consistency

Customers are everywhere — social, mobile, web — and they expect brands to keep up. With TX, brands can deliver a consistent, seamless experience across these channels. So, whether a customer starts on Instagram, picks up on a website, or checks out in the app, everything feels connected. It’s about real-time data, smart insights, and keeping the experience smooth, so customers feel recognized and engaged wherever they go.

TX demands a platform that intuitively connects your CRM, marketing, and ERP systems to unify experiences across customer, employee, and business partner interactions. A true TX solution is built with the latest technology stack — grounded in microservices and APIs — to stay flexible as market trends and e-commerce capabilities evolve. Stability and proven performance are critical; a reliable TX platform should demonstrate not only years of field-tested resilience but also a steady evolution in adaptability to meet shifting business demands.

SAP Commerce Cloud is designed with these principles at its core, offering ready-to-use (OOTB) integrations with ERP and other foundational systems. It seamlessly communicates with them using OData services and RFCs, establishing a frictionless data flow that enhances operational harmony. Additionally, its REST API support and Omni Commerce Connect (OCC) extension framework allow straightforward connectivity to AI tools and external systems, expanding its reach to meet the sophisticated needs of today’s digital landscape.

Moreover, SAP Commerce Cloud gives you the freedom to choose your preferred front-end framework — whether it’s React.js, Angular, or any other technology that fits your needs — without sacrificing compatibility or performance. For both business and technical teams, SAP provides partner self-service portals, including the Back Office and Admin Console, equipped to handle order management, system configurations, and catalog control. These tools confirm data synchronization and secure user access across your ecosystem, empowering your teams to manage, adapt, and innovate swiftly, all within a unified experience framework that grows with your organization.

PwC’s methodology combines decades of AI experience, a $1 billion investment in AI, and deep knowledge of SAP solutions. This powerful combination enables us to deliver streamlined, intelligent solutions that help drive efficiency and profitability for our clients. With out-of-the-box integrations and targeted customizations that add real value, our SAP solutions help clients create transformative customer experiences. Supported by alliances with leading AI providers like AWS, Google, Microsoft, and SAP, we can integrate advanced AI capabilities into the SAP ecosystem, enabling clients to meet and exceed market demands with adaptable, responsible, and future-ready solutions.

With SAP Commerce and advanced AI-driven tools at the core, we work with organizations to help deliver intelligent, real-time customer experiences across each business channel. Our approach leverages AI insights to help build deeper, trusted connections between customers and brands, creating a foundation for enduring loyalty. Discover how the SAP Customer Experience suite, powered by AI, can help elevate your business by crafting experiences that surpass expectations, drive impactful outcomes, and inspire unparalleled customer loyalty.