Customer communications management (CCM) has followed this same evolutionary arc, albeit more slowly. Well into the 2010s, and still today in many organizations, CCM remained a highly technical, back-office function dependent on code-heavy legacy systems. Each change, no matter how small, required logging a ticket and waiting for IT to code, test and deploy the update. For enterprises managing thousands of regulated communications, those cycles consumed staggering amounts of time, money and resources.

Today, nearly every CCM vendor promises some level of "business user control." While most represent improvements over their legacy predecessors, many only provide limited controls and require IT intervention. Business users may be able to edit text or swap images, but more complex tasks — data mapping, business rule configuration, sophisticated personalization, managing layouts testing—still require script or code.

At the same time, many vendors have struggled to adapt their solutions to the cloud and, in some cases, the SaaS version offers a limited, partial set of capabilities compared to their on-premise solution. Much of the process still happens behind firewalls, hidden within thick-client systems only technical teams can configure.

Many CCM systems also fail to provide a scalable solution to the fragmentation of content across channels. Separate tools for print, email SMS and web delivery perpetuate silos of templates, rules and data connections. The result is a patchwork of disconnected environments that remain difficult to govern and slow to change — and which IT teams still bear the brunt of maintaining.

Some enterprises have outsourced the entire function to third-party service providers. For smaller organizations with limited technical resources, this approach can make sense. But outsourcing doesn't restore control, it simply moves the queue outside the organization while adding cost and creating a layer of abstraction between business teams and the communications they own. Ironically, this often results in even less control than before.

The most advanced CCM platforms have moved beyond surface-level business user editing to extend control across the entire communications lifecycle. In unified, cloud-based environments, content authors can create communications, make updates, manage rules, generate proofs, test and implement changes all from an intuitive interface. The best platforms go further, decoupling content from document-centric formats so content can be shared and reused across channels. These capabilities enable business users to manage print and digital communications in one place, applying changes across channels and communications from a single point of change. Others have extended control into composition and post-composition processes, enabling non-technical teams to map data sources, adjust template layouts, configure presentation rules and even orchestrate multichannel journeys.

Extended control for business users represents a meaningful step toward removing IT from the daily work of CCM, but the core process of managing customer communications is still complex and time-consuming. Until that burden is lifted, business teams will continue to see their time and budgets stretched thin.

AI is already capable of delivering real value in CCM in the areas of content migration, optimization and translation, but how you leverage it matters. Standalone tools like ChatGPT are undeniably powerful, but without the right prompts, they can be disastrous content editors. They can also lead to inefficiency and a lot of rework by requiring users to waste time copying content into and out of these systems, offsetting the productivity gains from rapid rewrites and responses.

These limitations can be overcome when AI is integrated directly within the CCM platform itself. Operating in the same secure environment where content, metadata and business rules already live, AI can be applied with greater context and control. Some CCM technology already incorporates AI’s capabilities for streamlining content migration, rationalization, optimization and translation, but how AI is integrated into the platform matters greatly.

Some solutions have embedded conversational interfaces that replicate the experience of a standalone chatbot, leaving the burden of prompting on the user, working with one piece of content at a time. Others have overlooked the need to preserve complex formatting, variable data and logic, forcing users to reapply those elements manually after AI processing. These nuances are worth paying attention to as they reflect a vendor’s understanding of both AI and CCM, and their ability to bring the two together effectively. The best solutions work seamlessly across the entire content library and apply AI in a natural, effortless way that always keeps you informed and in charge of any changes.

That distinction will take on new weight as the application of AI spreads across enterprises in a widening variety of use cases by marketers and customer management teams. Generative AI, agentic AI and eventually Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), will transform business processes surrounding customer communications. It’s critical for organizations to choose their CCM solutions and partners carefully to understand their roadmaps and their ability to successfully navigate a changing landscape within the enterprise.