As we look toward 2027, the foundational markets Metrigy covers are progressing as forecasted with minimal change based on 1H26 actual numbers. Let’s break it down and how things could shift and change through 2027.
For CX, customer relationship management (CRM) is the largest market segment, on track to post $85.2 billion in 2026 revenue. On the flip side, contact center as a service (CCaaS) is the fastest growing market segment, albeit from the smallest base ($9.6 billion forecast for 2026).
While the CRM market is large, most companies that need a CRM system already have one so for providers to grow they need to be winning new business from competitors. Salesforce commands more than a quarter of the market. And the market is on track to continue growing at low single digits off a large base. We expect the continued expansion and evolution of AI, as well as the shift of CRM vendors to a headless model, relying on other AI apps to interface with data, to blur the lines between CRM and other customer experience platforms like CCaaS.
Of all the segments we track, CCaaS currently has the largest adoption upside since human contact center agents still operate predominantly from on-premises systems and dedicated cloud platforms. According to our research, with more than 50% of human agents still to migrate over to CCaaS, plus AI capabilities that add to premium pricing, there is a long on-ramp to growth. The CCaaS market is the one area where the growth attached to AI is hard to fully forecast beyond three years because the evolution of AI is outpacing what we can fathom and what businesses can keep up with beyond 12-24 months.
The market share leaders in CCaaS continue to be NiCE, Genesys, and Five9. However, this market has a broad set of competitors and new entrants, such as Microsoft, Salesforce, and Zoom, are making strides every year.
For workplace collaboration, unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) growth is steady as businesses continue to migrate off on-premises PBX and dedicated cloud platforms, even though many are de-emphasizing traditional phone service for employee communications, focusing instead on video conferencing and chat services. AI has long been used to augment UC through transcription and translation, and continue to expand these capabilities with the integration of context beyond meetings into note takers. We do not anticipate AI upending the UCaaS market but rather continue to enhance capabilities.
UCaaS is forecast to grow to $25.5 billion in 2027. Microsoft is the global market share revenue leader followed by RingCentral and Zoom. The leadership should hold steady at the top with smaller companies prone to consolidation or acquisition.
