Trust as strategy: The leadership mandate for customer communications in 2026

Customer communications have entered a new phase – and many enterprises are already behind.

AI has accelerated message volume, customer expectations have risen, and fragmented tech stacks are exposing operational weaknesses. Many enterprise communications systems weren’t built to function with this level of speed, scale, or complexity.

In this environment, the dividing line between leaders and followers is widening. Some organizations are rebuilding their communications foundation. Others are layering AI onto workflows that were already strained.

In our Sinch Predictions 2026 research, we found that the next era of customer communications will reward those who redesign their communications strategy around trust, integration, and intelligent orchestration. Those that simply automate existing systems will struggle.

For leadership teams, this is no longer simply about optimization. It’s about reengineering how customer communications work so trust is built into the entire system.

Organizations preparing for the next era are focused on four priorities: designing for two-way engagement, making trust visible in AI-powered systems, treating fraud as a growth-level risk, and turning service consistency into sustained customer loyalty.

For years, enterprise communications followed a broadcast model where marketing campaigns were scheduled and sent, and updates were pushed out based on pre-defined triggers. Interaction was optional, and largely one-directional.

That approach no longer matches consumer behavior. Customers expect to respond, adjust, and act on any message they’re sent by a brand. And as AI increases conversation volumes across industries, one-way messaging becomes a liability. According to our 2025 State of customer communications research:

• 58% of consumers want to choose their preferred channel when they opt in.
• 36% want informational updates delivered across more than one channel.
• 28% of consumers are frustrated when they are unable to ask questions in response to a transactional message.

Clearly, customers want the ability to engage on their terms, in their preferred channel, without starting over. That’s why the organizations preparing for the future understand that engagement must be architected as a two-way system by default.

That means:

• Embedding reply and interaction capabilities into marketing and operational messaging
• Moving from scheduled campaigns to behavior-driven orchestration
• Connecting marketing, service, and transactional data so conversations feel continuous
• Establishing AI guardrails that protect relevance as volume increases

As interactions scale, engagement quality directly impacts visibility, performance, and trust. Two-way engagement is becoming the baseline requirement for keeping customers engaged at scale.

“We will go from ending the conversation as soon as possible to solving the problem as soon as possible – and adding more value to that.”

Sofia Schönbeck Director of Programmable Voice, Sinch

For decades, trust in customer communication was reinforced through brand reputation and service quality, while most of the systems behind those interactions remained invisible to consumers. That’s changing.

As AI becomes embedded in customer communications, customer trust will be shaped by how those systems operate. Consumers may not see the infrastructure, but they feel the outcomes in the accuracy of a notification, the timing of a fraud alert, or the relevance of a response.

The State of customer communications shows that security, privacy, and integration remain top concerns for business leaders. At the same time, 52% of consumers say they would trust AI-generated informational updates.

Clearly, consumers increasingly accept automation, but they expect the automation to be reliable. A poorly timed update, an inaccurate recommendation, or a disconnected verification step can quickly become patterns customers recognize.

This creates a new responsibility for leadership teams. AI systems must be:

• Trained on accurate, business-specific data
• Designed with clear governance and guardrails
• Integrated so that context is preserved across channels
• Integrated with verified, authenticated channels that protect message integrity
• Transparent in how they escalate issues from automation to human support

The organizations getting ahead are treating AI as a trust infrastructure. And the ones that are doing it right know their choices directly affect whether their customers feel informed and secure.

As customer communications become more digital and automated, they also become more exposed to fraud. Verification codes, authentication prompts, and transactional alerts are now some of the most frequent touchpoints between a brand and its customers. These moments signal to a customer whether a company can be trusted – but they’re also prime targets for abuse.

Our 2025 consumer data shows that 76% of consumers see verification steps as critical, with 49% saying verification steps make them feel safer and 27% consider them a necessary inconvenience. Customers expect protection. They notice when it works — and when it doesn’t.

At the same time, fraud is no longer a technical issue confined to security teams because it directly affects retention, brand equity, and revenue. And fraud tactics are evolving quickly, with AI is increasing the scale and speed of messaging across every channel.

Leadership teams should now be doing three things differently:

• Elevating fraud prevention from an IT responsibility to a cross-functional mandate
• Aligning security, marketing, and service teams around shared standards for message authentication and delivery integrity
• Establishing clear ownership for customer identity protection across regions
• Reducing unnecessary friction while maintaining strong identity controls

They’re also recognizing that fraud patterns vary by geography. Fraud tactics differ by geography because regulatory requirements are not uniform. Global scale without regional insight creates vulnerability.

“New technology through RCS, WhatsApp, and network verification are all providing the rails that will secure future business-to-consumer communications and open up a new era of secure, trusted, friction-free interaction between brands and consumers.”

Robert Gerstmann Chief Evangelist and Co-Founder at Sinch

Trust is reinforced or weakened in service interactions. In fact, 81% of consumers have a negative reaction when they have to repeat information during service interactions.

Organizations that are serious about trust recognize how important service consistency is to long-term loyalty. How brands deal with customer service will increasingly determine whether customers stay.

For leadership teams, this means:

• Providing service teams with full interaction history across channels
• Implementing AI to resolve routine issues quickly while escalating complex cases with context intact
• Measuring customer satisfaction alongside retention and lifetime value
• Treating every service interaction as a trust moment

When customers feel recognized, protected, and informed at every step, loyalty becomes a byproduct of system design.

“In the future, the conversation will follow the customer, regardless of the channel. Communication will be across channels, across use cases, tying together the whole customer journey. And technology will bridge the gaps to able to tie the journey together.”

Hanna Johannesson Director of Product, Conversations at Sinch

Customer communications have come a long way from being a marketing function to becoming an operational discipline.

The leaders who win in this new era won’t be the ones who adopt the most AI tools or launch on the most channels. They’ll be the ones who rebuild their communications foundation around trust.

That requires:

• Designing engagement as two-way by default
• Making AI reliable, governed, and transparent
• Treating fraud prevention as a growth priority
• Delivering service continuity across every interaction

These each demand executive ownership and infrastructure that performs under pressure.

Trust is no longer shaped by brand messaging alone. It can be earned – or lost – in every interaction.

If you’re reassessing your communications strategy, watch Sinch’s on-demand webinar, What’s in the cards for customer communications?, to hear directly from industry leaders on how they’re preparing their teams for what comes next. Or, if you’re ready to take the next step, reach out to our team to explore how Sinch can help you build a trust-first communications strategy.

Author: Jonathan Bean Jonathan is Chief Marketing Officer at Sinch.