ISG Software Research Analyst Perspectives

Verint Unveils Its Post-Calabrio Direction

Posted by Keith Dawson on 09 July 2026

Any merger creates a certain amount of uncertainty about how it will impact customers: Questions about the roadmap or duplicate product lines invariably arise. In the case of Verint and Calabrio (now collectively named Verint), June’s Verint Engage customer event was an opportunity to finally discuss the changes and demonstrate how it plans to move forward. And expectations are high: The industry... Read More

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

NiCE World: How Cognigy Looks One Year In

Posted by Keith Dawson on 07 July 2026

Ten years ago, NiCE acquired inContact, and, in the process, began a radical transformation from its core business as a workforce application provider into a full-blown CCaaS and platform provider. It was a transformation as audacious and (ultimately) as well-executed as any I’ve seen in this industry. Now it’s clear that buying Cognigy last year will turn out to be just as significant a bet on a... Read More

Topics: Governance, Contact Center, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Conversational AI, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies, Conversational Intelligence, Cognigy

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

How Genesys Navigates a Post-CCaaS Era

Posted by Keith Dawson on 25 February 2026

It’s increasingly clear that, for software providers, focusing exclusively on contact center operations is a pathway to oblivion. Voice is no longer the organizing principle around which businesses structure their customer support—instead, we are fully in a world where automated self-service is the default and digital interactions are the norm. Enterprise buyers looking to modernize their contact... Read More

Topics: Contact Center, agent management, Intelligent Self-Service, Customers and CX - Business & Technologies

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

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