ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives | Conversational Intelligence

Enterprise Connect Shows a CX Industry in Transition

Posted by Keith Dawson on 07 April 2026

Industries change with the times, and so it is with the conferences and events that support those industries. Enterprise Connect is not what it once was, either in terms of attendance or influence, but it is still the place where many (not most) of the key providers in contact centers and customer experience (CX) convene. It’s been described as a place where providers meet with and seek out... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Verint, Customer Experience Management, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Salesforce, Enterprise Connect, AWS, Dialpad, UJET, Zoom

New Contact Center, New Roles to Fill

Posted by Keith Dawson on 01 April 2026

You can’t upend the entire technological infrastructure for an industry without seeing some ramifications in the form of personnel shifting and dislocation. Contact centers are smack in the middle of a transformation that is remaking the toolset and forcing businesses to rethink both the fundamental purpose of their centers and the mix of managerial and operational employees. Let’s consider how... Read More

Topics: WFM, Contact Center, Workforce Management, agent management, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, QM, Quality, CSR

CX Buyers Are Understandably Confused by Pricing

Posted by Keith Dawson on 19 March 2026

There is a growing sense of confusion and uncertainty among buyers when it comes to pricing for customer experience (CX) and contact center technology. Pricing does become more complex when technology innovates, creating broader options for mixing and matching features or more choices of the types of platforms people can use. In this industry, conditions have changed so quickly that the array of... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Pricing, Resolution-Based, Outcome-Based

Talkdesk Sees the Future of Service in CX Automation

Posted by Keith Dawson on 03 March 2026

Contact center software is evolving faster than the companies that make it. The tools that operated centers remained very stable for decades and then in a very rapid period shifted away from voice and telephony towards digital interactions and broader forms of customer engagement. It’s been a natural, even expected, transition, given how the rest of the software universe has injected artificial... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Customer Experience Management, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence

NiCE Clarifies AI Strategy in Cognigy’s Wake

Posted by Keith Dawson on 12 November 2025

Analyst summits are not where software providers go to make news, it’s where they seek to clarify and validate what they’ve already done and lay out strategies for the future. October’s NiCE summit in Vienna was an opportunity to take stock of the enormous changes artificial intelligence (AI) has wrought in the service industry and put NiCE’s recent moves into context. It’s no exaggeration to say... Read More

Topics: automation, Contact Center, agent management, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, NiCE, Cognigy

Verint Uniquely Advances AI for CX with New Ownership

Posted by Keith Dawson on 15 October 2025

Verint held its annual Engage conference in September, shortly after it announced the news that it had agreed to be acquired by private equity firm Thoma Bravo for $2 billion. The new ownership plans on merging Verint with its competitor, Calabrio, after the deal closes in 2026. That sequence of events raises many important questions about the direction of both companies and the sector... Read More

Topics: automation, Contact Center, Verint, agent management, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence

Zendesk Illustrates How CCaaS Becomes CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 24 September 2025

When building or outfitting a contact center, the core question that must be answered is: what software provider or system is foundational? For decades, the fundamental element was the routing engine, but as technology moved to the cloud, the primacy of the voice ACD receded. As it did, it became possible to conceive of a tech stack that’s not organized around routing but instead is focused on... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, Customer Experience Management, CCaaS, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Zendesk

The Tricky Relationship Between Personalization and Customer Loyalty

Posted by Keith Dawson on 30 July 2025

There is an industry assumption, call it a consensus, that increasing the degree of personalization in customer interactions is beneficial: it improves loyalty, lifetime value, CSAT and other key metrics. Core to this assumption is that it benefits both the customer and the business. Whether or not that’s actually true is somewhat beside the point. The fact is that the industry has identified a... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, NPS, Personalization, Customer Experience Management, Orchestration, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Customer Journey, Loyalty, CSAT

Conversational Automation’s Impact on AI and CX

Posted by Keith Dawson on 15 May 2025

Conversational automation is one of those software segments that means something different depending on who you are or your role in an organization. According to my colleague Jeff Orr, the core of the idea is that conversational automation tools benefit from artificial intelligence (AI), allowing software agents, chatbots and virtual assistants to automate customer interactions and internal... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, Intelligent Self-Service, Conversational Intelligence

The Consequences of AI-Induced Head Count Reduction for Contact Centers

Posted by Keith Dawson on 08 May 2025

Most of the discussion and planning around artificial intelligence (AI) tools for contact centers and CX has focused on finding appropriate use cases and understanding how to deploy these tools. There are already plenty of success stories about enterprises reducing friction for agents, saving time and expanding the breadth of interactions that can be handled automatically. Now that most people... Read More

Topics: Customer Experience, Contact Center, Business, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Conversational Intelligence