Contact Center & Beyond: Elevating CX 2026-27

Authors: Robin Gareiss, CEO and Principal Analyst

The contact center remains the core communications platform for customer interactions, but it’s changing rapidly. Digital channels, AI applications, and analytics tools are elevating the contact center to become a CX center. But integrations with other platforms and tools, including CRM, service management, AI agents, and advanced analytics, are expanding the reach of the contact center dramatically. With the rapid change in all of technology, this study will examine the state of the contact center and its role in delivering the best possible customer experience. The study will address the following:

• AI's, and specifically agentic AI’s, role in the contact center and in overall CX, for customer self-service, agent assist, supervisor assist, and more
• Adoption and preferences for architecture, platforms, and integrations
• Strategies for proactive outreach and personalization, and how AI plays a role
• Adoption of workflow automations and where companies see the most value
• How companies track customer journeys and find points for optimization
• CPaaS’ role in delivering intelligent proactive experiences
• Top concerns with security and compliance, how companies are addressing them, and where AI fits into the equation
• Why companies are expanding their contact center technologies outside of the traditional use cases to areas such as field service, sales, frontline workers, and marketing
• How companies measure success and ROI for their CX strategies, and what the metrics are
• What the revised baseline KPIs are for contact center agents and supervisors as AI agents complement humans
• Who is leading CX strategy, and how is staffing changing?