From Personalised to Personal: The Emotional Intelligence of Companion Mode

Jul 14, 2025 | min read

Fernando Henrique Silva

There is nothing more powerful than feeling deeply understood. Whether it’s by a person, a colleague, or even a large language model, the human desire for connection is one of our most powerful motivators.

That’s why customisation has long been a trend in the CX space. But the rise of Gen AI means that customisation is evolving into personalisation. This goes farther than learning a customer’s stated or past preferences — it picks up on their emotions, subtle queues, and leaves the consumer feeling like they aren’t just a cluster of preferences recognised by the algorithm, but rather a unique individual with needs that can be met and cared for.

This shift is what underscores the rise of companion mode, which refers to digital or AI-powered experiences that guide and enhance the customer journey either online or in-store. Whether it’s a personal shopping assistant that makes real-time recommendations, purchases, returns or an investment bank’s AI-powered financial advisory service, companion mode is hyper-responsive and emotionally attuned.

This level of personalisation is subtle, proactive, and incredibly powerful at building loyalty. And it’s set to drastically change the way brands and businesses interact with customers.

Anticipating needs

Companion mode is more than just inserting a chatbot into the sales journey. It should be multimodal, and guide the customer through the various touchpoints of their journey. All the while, it should be aware of context and the customer’s history with the company or brand.

More than anything, it anticipates the customer’s needs. Rather than hitting a snag and having to ask for help, a customer should find that their proactive companion notices when something has stalled or gone wrong, and directs them to a solution, be it digital or human-powered. In fact, moments of human-AI collaboration are potentially where companion mode can leave the biggest impression on a customer — it’s the sweet spot where the opportunity for long-term goodwill (and loyalty) is made.

The use of companion mode is seeing rapid growth in the customer service automation space, according to a study from PW Consulting. There, AI companions are handling anywhere from 30 to 40% of basic inquiries from customers in the e-commerce sector. And it appears to work: the study noted that customers report 22% higher satisfaction after interacting with chatbots with emotional intelligence versus scripted systems.

One leading example of companion mode working well in the retail sector comes from Nike. When a customer walks into a Nike store with the app already downloaded on their phone, the app automatically switches to In-Store Mode. This mode allows the customer increased functionality, including scanning barcodes for product info and availability, requesting items to be brought to fitting rooms, and allows them to check out in-app to skip lines. The result is that Nike has blended the brand’s digital experience with its physical one, increasing convenience and customer loyalty in the process.

In addition, beauty retailer Sephora offers a visual try-on tool known as “Visual Artist” as well as personalised quizzes on its app and website. It allows consumers to try products, star in tutorials, and make recommendations to friends and family without even entering a store. This offers an element of customisation and intimacy to a sector where customers are likely to have hyper-specific questions and preferences, as well as an emotional connection to the products they buy. The tool can stay with the user during their shopping session in-store, helping them find the right shades, skincare, or fragrances.

Outside of the brick-and-mortar space, companion mode can also offer a hybrid CX, boosting efficiency and acting as a kind of co-pilot to humans. Zoom’s AI companion is a good example, which acts as a quiet participant on calls, and provides meeting summaries to everyone afterwards.

Of course, there are a lot of potential use cases for companion mode in the financial services sector as well, such as recommending financial products to banking customers or checking in on a customer’s long-term goals. For example, JP Morgan is reportedly developing an AI-powered service to help its customers choose investments, and it’s likely that other competitors will follow suit. However, deploying companion mode in this context requires managing more regulations and compliance concerns compared to the retail or e-commerce space.

Clearing the psychological barrier

Of course, the full implementation of companion mode will require companies to ask for even more customer data that customers are accustomed to giving. And since companion mode factors in human feelings, empathy, and emotions into its decisions, the consent must be even more explicit. In Europe, to stay compliant with GDPR, companies need clear user consent to collect this so-called “emotional data,” and algorithms that imitate human behaviour face stricter rules. A 2024 Mozilla investigation found that many leading AI companion apps collect deeply personal emotional data—like mood, trauma, and relationship history—often without clear consent or proper safeguards, putting organisations at risk of violating GDPR.

Consumers often have a psychological barrier to this level of openness, which means that companies need to work even harder to communicate the benefits of doing so — in other words, what the customer is getting in return.

Fortunately, customers' willingness seems to be growing. According to a 2023 Accenture report, 58% of consumers say they would be “willing to share a lot of data in exchange for advice that is more relevant to their personal circumstances,” while 68% say they would do so in exchange for “faster, easier services.” The open banking sector, which requires customers to hand over more of their personal data compared to traditional banking, also provides a useful comparison. One in five Britons now have an active open banking connection — compared to just one in 17 in 2021 — which shows that willingness is growing quickly.

Once companies have cleared the hurdle of getting consent from their user, the challenge shifts to retention, which can be harder than companies realise. An analysis of one AI app showed that retention rates dropped from 50-60% retention the next day to 13-18% after 30 days. This underscores the need to design an emotionally compelling companion mode experience that transcends mere novelty to stay useful over the long haul.

Ambient computing is next

We’re really only at the beginning of hyper-personalised and predictive AI. While it’s still largely seen as a novelty – especially when it works – the rise of ambient computing will see AI tools like these deeply integrated into daily life. Users will be able to interact with these systems seamlessly via voice, gestures, or devices. They will take feeling understood by their devices as a given.

But brands that want to get ahead of the trend should act now. Ultimately, companion mode is an expression of the work you’ve done to understand your consumer: their needs, their wants, their pain points, and frustrations. Investing in this area is all about creating more intuitive, efficient, and deeply satisfying relationships with them.