From single-channel support to multimodal intelligence: Why visual evidence is the future of CX

Over the past decade working in support, one pattern has always stood out to me: the biggest delays and frustrations in customer service do not come from a lack of goodwill, but from a lack of clarity. Too often, support teams are forced to interpret incomplete, fragmented, or ambiguous information. Customers do their best to describe a delivery issue, a broken product, or a configuration error, but words alone rarely convey the full reality. It only takes one misunderstanding to create a long, unnecessary back-and-forth.

As the saying goes, a picture is worth a thousand words. And if that is true, then a video is worth far more.

Visual evidence has become essential for qualifying issues accurately, preventing miscommunication, and accelerating resolution. This shift did not come from large enterprises. It came from customers themselves because the way people communicate in their personal lives has already changed dramatically.

Customers have moved on, but brands are only just catching up

Thanks to social apps like WhatsApp, Instagram, and TikTok, everyone from teenagers to retirees now increasingly uses images, video messages, and real-time video calls as part of their communication style. Using video is fast, intuitive, and expressive. People can more easily and naturally convey their thoughts and ideas, along with context for additional meaning in their interpersonal communications. Given this ability in their social interactions, people are increasingly frustrated when they do not have this same option when interacting with businesses.

This marks an important transition: customers are pushing companies toward richer, more natural communication options and channels. In recognition that text or voice alone is no longer enough to troubleshoot and solve most issues, industries are increasingly moving from a “Tell me about your issue” stance to “Tell me about and show me your issue, so I can better help your troubleshoot and quickly solve it” invitation.

The demand for this multimodal support ability is loud and clear. Zendesk’s latest research confirms this trend: 76% of consumers say they would choose a company that allows them to drop text, images, and video into the same thread without restarting the conversation.

From early multimodality to a true multimodal experience

Support teams have already started receiving photos, screenshots, and documents from customers. All good steps in the right direction. However, this approach is still fundamentally limited.

Today, visual information is:

• sent inconsistently

• checked manually

• scattered across channels

• poorly connected to the rest of the conversation

In other words, multimodality exists but it is not yet intelligent. It does not scale, it does not enrich automation, and it does not adapt to customer context.

To unlock the true promise of multimodal experiences, visual input needs to be captured and analyzed seamlessly across every channel: forms, tickets, bots, SMS conversations, messaging apps, and even after voice calls.

The future is not about adding more channels. Rather, it is about blending them into one effortless flow.

Visual AI is the missing layer that makes multimodal truly powerful

AI has already transformed text-based support by understanding intent, summarizing conversations, and helping agents craft responses. But the next frontier, one that will reshape support entirely is applying AI to audio and video.

This is where multimodal support becomes multimodal intelligence.

There are two major breakthroughs happening right now:

Automation will rely on visual signals to resolve the majority of support requests

Many organizations are preparing for a future where automation handles up to 80% of support requests. But automation cannot succeed without context, which video can more readily provide. The real enabler of this automated future is visual intelligence embedded in a multimodal support framework. This is why relying on text alone is too limited for complex real-world issues.

When customers can effortlessly blend video along with other communications channels (such as text, voice, or image) into a single support interaction, AI can more accurately assess the situation. Automation then becomes not just possible, but also improves its accuracy. Issues that previously required multiple touchpoints can instead now be resolved much more rapidly.

The future of CX is seamless, visual, and AI-powered

We are entering a new era where support teams finally can become what customers expect: fast, human, and intuitive. Customers increasingly want to express themselves naturally, sometimes with words, sometimes with visuals, often with both. And they want the companies they interact with and rely on to understand them on the first try.

But multimodal support is not just a technological shift. It is also a behavioral one.

Businesses that embrace rich media and visual intelligence offer faster resolutions, speed, and autonomy at a scale text-only support could never achieve. In the future, great CX leaders will rely on a simple principle for more accurate support assessments and faster troubleshooting with much less friction as they shift towards a new behavior mindset: “Do not explain the problem. Instead, show it to me.”