This approach enables enterprises to access information instantly across various environments, providing their agents with automated, complex responses. 

Deepdesk was previously recognized for its approach at the Microsoft Hackathon Awards in September, winning the highest score among CX vendors in the category ‘Ready to Scale’, strengthening its relationship with Microsoft. 

The Platform-Agnostic AI Approach 

Platform-agnostic AI is an approach that enables AI to operate independently from a platform without the need to rebuild or redesign itself. 

And whilst traditional AI models are typically linked to a single system, Platform-agnostic AI can run seamlessly across different CX platforms whilst maintaining consistency and independence from a single vendor. 

This means that enterprises can function flexibly across multiple environments, such as Microsoft or Salesforce systems. 

In 2024, Deepdesk was acquired by CX provider AnywhereNow to advance its product suite with Deepdesk’s AI assistant tool. 

In conversation with CX Today, Jonathan Quayle, Product Evangelist at AnywhereNow, explained how this approach can operate smoothly across different environments. 

He said, “Platform-agnostic AI means organizations don’t need to rebuild or replace their existing CX infrastructure to benefit from intelligent automation.  

“Instead, it integrates with the existing CX stack – whether that’s Genesys, Salesforce, or a proprietary system – with the AI capabilities, such as Microsoft Copilot, layered on top of it.”  

The Benefits  

This AI layer approach aligns with hybrid AI models, enabling humans and agents to coexist within the same system without replacing one another. 

It enables the AI to support repetitive tasks such as research, response suggestions, summarizing, and automating workflows, while humans remain in the driver’s seat for customer interactions. 

Qualye continues: “Achieving this involves decoupling the AI logic from the underlying architecture, which allows us to orchestrate agent assistance, knowledge retrieval, and automation across environments. 

“This approach allows for consistent performance and context retention, regardless of the platform. It also means organizations retain control over their tech stack, avoiding lock-in and enabling flexibility as their needs evolve.” 

Furthermore, this approach can maintain independence whilst also retaining knowledge and context it received from travelling across platforms, allowing for seamless assistance and optimal agent usage. 

With reduced deployment complexity and expanding human capability, this also helps accelerate integration and ROI even when changes are made to any of the adopted systems. 

He said, “These tangible outcomes directly impact cost-to-serve and customer satisfaction.” 

Microsoft Partnership  

Utilizing its long-standing relationship with Microsoft, AnywhereNow has utilized the CCaaS giant’s Copilot tool in its platform-agnostic customer experience approach, allowing it to deepen its partnership with Microsoft. 

The SaaS provider has leveraged Copilot AI as the engine in its approach, while also still enabling seamless deployment for systems other than Microsoft. 

This utilization only improves willingness to adopt this approach since many organizations already adopt Microsoft tools in their systems. 

Quayle added, “It also provides a trust advantage as governance, security, and compliance conversations have already happened. 

“This gives customers the freedom to choose the tools that work best for them, while still leveraging the benefits of Microsoft.” 

The Challenges

Despite the approach offering seamless flexibility with AI, Deepdesk finds difficulties in ensuring full compatibility at scale. 

This can include issues with enterprises choosing to locate their data sporadically across multiple CX systems, resulting in data gaps for the AI. 

In fact, “The real challenge lies in orchestrating data flows between disparate systems, ensuring that AI can support agents in real time without introducing latency or inconsistency.” 

This can cause havoc if the approach is blocked or not incorporated in all necessary systems, stopping the AI from moving across and accessing the required data to generate responses for agents. 

This may also prove challenging when systems need to be updated or thrown out without including the platform-agnostic model, likely leading to lost context or creating silos. 

The AI layer can only function once it receives a level of understanding and information at a consistent rate, no matter what types of varied technology are being used. 

This requires enterprises that implement this approach to expose the AI to all necessary systems, enabling its agents to receive the best possible responses. 

“Enabling platform-agnostic, hybrid agent journeys isn’t about plugging into existing systems, it’s about designing AI that can operate across fragmented architectures while maintaining continuity, context, and control.  

He added, “Our approach is composable by design, allowing us to adapt to different environments, evolve with changing tech stacks, and preserve the AI investment even as platforms shift.” 

Rhys Fisher sits down with Miguel Marcos, VP of Operations at Enghouse Interactive, to unpack one of the most pressing debates in customer experience: Is cloud the only path to modernization?

Together, they dive into why flexibility, not rigid vendor mandates, is the real key to innovation in the contact center world.

Cloud-first strategies may dominate the headlines, but are they really the best fit for every business?

In this candid conversation, Miguel Marcos reveals why organizations need freedom of choice when it comes to CX transformation – and how Enghouse Interactive empowers IT and CX leaders to modernize on their own terms.

Here’s what you’ll learn in this discussion:

How the evolution of cloud technology has reshaped CX, and why compliance and control still matter.

The risks of vendor lock-in and the hidden challenges of cloud-only adoption.

What “a contact center without compromise” means in practice – spanning on-premise, hybrid, and cloud deployments.

The role of AI in Enghouse Interactive’s modernization roadmap, and how it delivers value across every deployment model.

Whether you’re exploring SaaS, hybrid, or on-premises solutions, this interview shows why modernization doesn’t have to mean compromise.

Next Steps:

• Watch the full interview for actionable insights on CX modernization.
• Subscribe to CX Today for more expert discussions with leading voices in the industry.
• Learn more about Enghouse Interactive’s flexible CX solutions by visiting their website.

The cloud-based software company announced its third-quarter earnings report on Monday, revealing strong results across the board. 

This has led to ongoing investments into current and future AI products and initiatives. 

“We remain on track to exceed the $100MN in ARR from new products by the end of 2025,” said RingCentral CEO, Vladimir Shmunis, adding:

“Adoption of our new AI-led products is broad-based across various customer cohorts, from small businesses to large enterprises.

“Our GSP partners are also beginning to sell these new offerings, expanding our reach and accelerating adoption.” 

This expansion has led the company to roll out multiple AI product releases this week, increasing its customer base by branching out into emerging AI trends. The launches are aimed at enhancing communication experiences for both customers and agents.

This has resulted from an R&D spend of $125MN into its new AI portfolio. The company is already seeing consistent profitable growth, in the hopes of exceeding the year-end ARR target. 

RingWEM Adds AI Workforce Tools to Cloud Contact Center

On Monday, RingCentral released its latest AI product, RingWEM, an AI-powered workforce engagement management suite designed to enhance its native cloud contact center, RingCX. 

The suite offers four capabilities to strengthen customer experience across agent performance, customer satisfaction, and operational efficiencies by using AI-powered insights: 

AI Quality Management: Designed to give human agents the skills to improve their overall performance, the quality management tool will use personalized customer quality criteria to evaluate and provide extensive insight and feedback on customer calls. 

The tool is used to analyze and observe full customer interactions and agent workflows, delivering focused guidance for reskilling. 

Furthermore, the tool offers AI-based coaching recommendations to improve agent expertise, allowing enterprises to improve their workforce by viewing their agents’ performance analytics, common communication themes and advise them on next steps using the provided data-driven advice. 

AI Workforce Management: Used to improve quality in customer service, planning for potential challenges, and overall efficiency, this tool combines precise data forecasting and resourceful scheduling to align staff with probable tasks to tackle targeted demand. 

By using precise data forecasting, the AI workforce management tool can use algorithms to analyze past and current data trends and business drivers to predict the likelihood of contact quantities, allowing time for agents to tackle abnormal spikes before they occur. 

With intelligent scheduling, the workforce tool can generate actionable schedules for agents to follow that include agent preferences, adjustable service level actions, and business requirements to keep agents on track with tasks. 

These can be modified to fit irregular changes in working conditions to ensure that service levels stay the same to avoid customer friction. 

Additionally, customer agent supervisors can run probable scenarios to analyze the effectiveness of staff models and company changes before they are implemented. 

AI Interaction Analytics: This tool provides enterprises with high-level insights into customer satisfaction with interactions, compiling data taken from surveys and summaries from the interactions themselves to address negative customer experiences. 

AI Interaction Analytics can dissect customer conversations through voice tone, language preferences, and patterns in speech to assess satisfaction. 

The tool can use this and other conversations to further analyze key customer trends and issues as a whole, allowing businesses to proactively address these concerns before escalation. 

Screen Recording: Similar to the AI Quality Management capability, this tool allows supervisors to evaluate customer-agent interactions by collectively linking calls and screen recordings for a wider range of information into quality of conversation and workflow efficiency. 

These tools can be utilized to address underlying issues with agent performance and customer satisfaction and elevate operations in contact centers to deliver smarter service. 

RingCentral Debuts Agentic Voice AI Suite

RingCentral has also released its agentic voice AI communications suite, encompassing three tools that enhance communication experiences across the lifespan of each customer interaction. 

AI Receptionist (AIR): Before a conversation begins, this tool ensures that calls are not left unanswered. 

Using the voice AI ability to interact with customers, this AI agent can comprehend a customer’s reason for calling, answer questions, hand off real-time interactions to agents with summarized caller context, and identify and log potential opportunities that may require a human agent to follow up. These can help to avoid customer friction and repeated information. 

For scheduling interactions, AIR provides multi-calendar support across a company to integrate employee schedules and harmonize teams. 

Sales opportunities are collected and stored for future use in Salesforce, HubSpot, or with AIR’s own database. 

AIR can also be used on any SIP-based phone, allowing AI customer handling to be dealt with across the cloud, any premises, or hybrid setups. 

Brian Tucker, Chief Digital Officer at Televero Health, is a customer of RingCentral’s AIR tool. 

He said, “Using RingCentral’s AI Receptionist, the results are undeniable. We saw our monthly appointments increase 14 percent in the first four months, an increase in monthly revenue of over $200,000. 

“That kind of growth and return on investment is exactly what we need.”

AI Virtual Assistant (AVA): During a conversation, AVA can provide an agent with real-time assistance across customer interactions by implementing four key capabilities: 

• Real-Time Calls and Meeting Summaries: Identify the relevant information, questions, and actionable tasks during the span of a call or meeting, generating summaries and highlight reels to allow agents to keep track of the interaction’s objective during the call. 
• AI Writer to Create and Translate Communications: This capability can draft, edit, and translate conversations in multiple languages, allowing for seamless and customer-focused messaging. 
• Multi-Use Assistance Across Workflows: By adapting to a user’s communication method, via phone, text, or chat, this tool can provide intelligent prompts and relevant actions for each task. 
• Product Adoption and Feature Discovery: AVA can advise discovery and management methods to improve RingCentral’s overall customer enterprise experience. 

Kira Makagon, President & COO, RingCentral, explained the value of AVA in an enterprise workflow: “By putting trusted voice intelligence at employees’ fingertips, AVA makes work more productive and empowering,

“AVA is your personal virtual assistant that enables you to work smarter, faster, and more efficiently.”

AI Conversation Expert (ACE): After a conversation, ACE steps in to offer evaluated business insights from these interactions and adds it into one analytics and insights layer for a simplified outlook. 

It provides real-time insight into current customer satisfaction, trends in revenue, and overall agent team performance, giving context to performance data to allow leaders to act quickly. 

When requested, ACE can turn compound data into written summaries, recommend actions and examples of improvement, and be used an interactive interface to allow leaders to inquire related queries with instant results. 

Zach Jecklin, Chief Information Officer at Echo Global Logistics, and customer of ACE, uses the tool for improving company knowledge on customer calls and data trends. 

“AI Conversation Expert provides us with the detailed coaching for individual calls, and the dashboard connects the dots by rolling up all that data into a clear, concise view of the major trends impacting the entire business,” Jecklin said.  

“We used to have call data. Now, we have business intelligence. It’s that simple.”

RingCentral Pairs New AI Tools with Solid Growth

RingCentral has launched the new AI tools in conjunction with the announcement of its strong third earnings quarter. 

During its earnings call, the company reported a total revenue result of $639MN, seeing a growth of 5 percent from the previous year. 

Subscription revenue also increased, rising by 6 percent to $616MN, with a 23 percent rise of $130MN in free cash flow, which it intends to increase during the rest of the year.

The rep agrees, promises to follow up, then jumps into the next appointment. By the end of the day, the update never makes it into the CRM.  

Multiply that across dozens of agents, and an enterprise suddenly has a huge visibility gap.  

Customer conversations don’t just happen in contact centers or on video calls; they happen on the move – in cars, corridors, or outside client sites.  

Yet, too often, those interactions slip through the cracks. Leaders lose valuable insight, compliance risks increase, and productivity suffers when staff must log everything manually.  

As workforces become more mobile and hybrid, that gap is widening. And with regulators clamping down on how organizations can engage with customers, the stakes are higher than ever.  

The Pressure Is Rising  

Enterprises with global operations must keep up with regulations across multiple markets. 

In France, for instance, telesales will move to an opt-in model from August 2026, effectively shutting down traditional cold calling. 

This is just one shift that could disrupt outbound engagement, forcing businesses to find new, compliant ways to reach customers, who are always mobile today. 

At the same time, many agents have already been working in hybrid setups or out in the field for years – but often without the right tools. 

Endless admin tasks, patchy reachability, and the lack of proper digital support – like CRM updates or automatic call logging – have held them back and kept them from focusing on their core job. 

Making Mobile Work  

One company addressing this is Diabolocom, with what it calls the industry’s first app-free mobile CX solution.  

In an exclusive interview with CX Today, Ben Shakespeare, Senior Sales Executive for North America at Diabolocom, shared some early results.  

“Sales teams targeting schools, real estate, and campus-style environments have seen up to a 20 percentage-point improvement in reachability,” he said.  

“That’s a big jump, and it’s driven by the ability of customers to reach agents wherever they are – not just when the agent is at a desk or in a call center.”

The value goes further than better pick-up rates. By turning mobile phones into managed CX endpoints, businesses can log interactions, update CRMs, and trigger follow-ups automatically.  

“Let’s say a customer says, ‘Let’s meet tomorrow at 2 PM’ – that info can automatically trigger a calendar invite, CRM update, and task assignment,” Shakespeare noted. “No need to switch apps or go back to a desktop.”  

Efficiency gains are especially evident in field services. If a technician receives a reschedule while driving, the system can capture and transcribe the call, update the CRM, and shift the appointment in real time.  

Healthcare offers another insightful example.  

Shakespeare recalled one end-of-life care provider that had been budgeting $10–15 million annually for legal costs tied to compliance disputes.  

“Now, with our solution of recording and transcribing calls, they’ve cut that cost dramatically,” he said.  

Compliance Meets Connection  

For Shakespeare, regulations like the French law make mobile integration more urgent.  

By forwarding calls to mobile when technicians are away from their desks, teams can stay effective while keeping within the rules.  

But compliance isn’t the only factor. Mobile also carries a personal dimension, as Shakespeare explained:  

“If I have your mobile number, there’s a sense of trust and accessibility there.” 

“And by automating the backend – CRM, calendar, task management – we let sales and field teams focus on conversations, not admin.”  

This balance between compliance and connection is what many CX leaders are striving for.  

When cancellations, reschedules, or updates happen on the fly, automation ensures the customer experience doesn’t break down.  

The AI Advantage  

AI underpins much of this progress.  

Beyond transcription, it can summarize, tag, and log interactions across calls, SMS, and messaging apps – giving managers visibility into mobile conversations they’ve long lacked.  

“From a manager’s perspective, you always know what’s going on,” Shakespeare said.  

“You have visibility into what your team is doing, what calls were made, what was said, and what actions were taken.”  

The tool also connects WhatsApp conversations and mobile calls directly into Salesforce or other CRMs, ensuring conversation histories remain synced and searchable across channels.  

Rethinking Mobility in CX  

For enterprises, mobility can no longer sit outside the CX ecosystem.  

Smartphones have evolved into vital tools in the customer journey, and treating them as such unlocks efficiency, compliance, and customer trust.  

As Shakespeare summed up:  

“I’ll be honest, I personally hate updating CRMs. I’d rather spend my time talking to people. This lets me do that while taking care of all the admin in the background.” 

Looking ahead, mobility is set to become a defining theme in enterprise CX.  

With hybrid work entrenched, regulations shifting, and AI advancing fast, capturing and acting on every mobile interaction could become the dividing line between leaders and laggards.  

Customer experience teams that embrace mobile as a core CX channel, rather than an afterthought, will be best placed to stay compliant, build stronger relationships, and deliver the seamless experiences customers expect. 

The report revealed that both enterprises and consumers were more willing to adopt AI in customer service. 

The tech company leveraged its Agentic Enterprise Index to uncover trends in the first 6 months of the year, revealing that the quantity of AI Agents across businesses who adopted them increased on average by 119%. 

Salesforce saw an increase in consumer willingness to adopt AI, with 94% of consumers choosing to interact with the AI agent when asked, as well as nearly 60% choosing to frequently use AI agents after claiming they had become more helpful during the past year. 

Furthermore, employee willingness has increased, with agent interactions having grown 65%, along with 35% longer conversations between AI and employee. 

This increase in AI adoption highlights the speed at which AI integration will not only be implemented but accepted in the workforce. 

Earlier in the year, Salesforce revealed that 80% of global HR chiefs agreed that by 2030, most workforces will become hybrid, with a likely future of humans and AI agents working together. 

From a customer service perspective, this allows human agents to focus on complex issues to drive customer relationships, whilst the AI agent completes the human’s repetitive tasks, without worrying about how it will affect customer loyalty. 

AI Agent Adoption Not Yet Universal

Within its report, Salesforce detailed how AI agent adoption rates varied depending on the sector. 

In financial services, for example, employee interactions with AI agents had grown 105% each month during the first half of 2025, whilst 38% of their consumers who chose to interact with AI agents reportedly favored performing money management tasks with the AI. 

Ryan Teeples, Chief Technology Officer at 1-800-Accountant, claimed that “with Agentforce now resolving up to 60% of incoming requests, we can confidently address routine inquiries like tax return statuses, which frees our team to focus on more intricate tasks while still providing swift, secure and personalized support.” 

In travel and hospitality, the industry saw AI agents and employee interactions growing at 133% each month during the first half of 2025, whilst also seeing a higher activity amongst business users compared to other industries surveyed. 

Demetri Salvaggio, Senior Director, Business Development & Client Operations at Engine, highlights how tailoring their AI agents has increased its capabilities for improved routine task handling:

“This has been critical in achieving our reduction in average handle time by 15%.” 

In retail, AI agents and employees were increasing their interactions at a monthly rate of 128%, with 200% of consumers who regularly interacted with AI in retail agreeing that their overall experience with the retail industry has been improved. 

Calvin Anderson, Vice President of Digital Commerce Operations & User Experience at SharkNinja, explains how adding digital and AI enhancements to improve and support a consumer’s shopping experience would strengthen their impression of the brand, stating:

“This not only enhances brand loyalty through tailored recommendations but also allows our team members to focus on more complex, meaningful interactions.” 

The report suggests that AI agent adoption is likely to rise, with 60% of consumers who use these agents agreeing that they have become increasingly more helpful during the past year. 

Interestingly, although the vendor predicts the growing influence of AI agents, it also implies a greater reliance upon humans, with human agent escalation activity increasing by 10% between Q1 and Q2 in 2025. 

Arguably, this increase in human escalation is a natural byproduct of more customers having to interact with AI agents in the first place. As the technology becomes more advanced and customers become more adept at interacting with it, it is likely that these escalations will decrease, potentially making human agents surplus to requirements.

As Cognigy’s Vice President, Alan Ranger, explains, there’s still a widespread misunderstanding about what AI agents can do. “Most people think AI agents are still co-pilots – tools that assist human advisors with suggestions or summarizing emails,” Ranger notes. “But we’re now entering a phase where AI agents can independently handle tasks with near-human conversational quality.”  

This evolution marks a shift away from the early “bots that suck” – rigid, rule-based systems that often frustrate users. Today’s leading AI agents are conversational and adaptive and can resolve a broader range of tasks. They combine deterministic conversational AI platforms that keep conversations on track with the broader understanding and fluidity of large language models (LLMs).  

More than Just Customer Service  

While customer-facing roles in contact centers have been the primary playground for AI agents, their reach is expanding. Ranger highlights emerging use cases in back-office operations, such as billing departments, training functions, product feedback loops, and even brand development.  

“AI is becoming a tool to interrogate systems and knowledge bases,” he says. “Contact centers often detect product or service issues before operations teams are even aware. With AI agents plugged into these conversations, businesses can act faster and smarter.”  

The ability of AI agents to spot trends across vast datasets makes them valuable not just for service but also for strategic decision-making. Imagine an AI agent that notices an unusual spike in complaints about a specific product model or shipping issue – it can flag potential systemic problems in real time, closing service gaps and uncovering the root causes long before traditional processes catch up.  

The Shift from Human-First Design to AI-First 

Integrating AI agents isn’t just a technical task – it’s a cultural and architectural one. Many legacy systems, especially contact center platforms, were built with only human agents in mind. This outdated approach forces AI to “act human” in ways that limit its true potential.  

Ranger suggests a more outcome-oriented model: “We need to stop designing around human agents and start designing for outcomes. AI agents should be integrated not as a bolt-on but as core service architecture components.”  

Technically, this means more direct integrations – AI agents managing their phone lines or back-end processes without routing through central IT or contact center infrastructure. It also means building orchestration layers allowing AI to navigate departments and datasets freely.  

A Blended Future 

As businesses continue to adopt hybrid work models, the workforce itself is becoming hybrid – humans working alongside AI teammates. And these agents are no longer just support staff; they’re decision-makers, analysts, and even the first point of contact.  

The shift isn’t just about replacing human effort. It’s about enhancing what humans can do, spotting what they might miss, and giving organizations the agility to respond in real time. 

The index connects to a company’s knowledge sources, customer records, call transcripts, and more. It then powers Amazon Q, AWS’s “AI assistant for work”.

Now, the index may also power the Zoom AI Companion.

As a result, Zoom users can pull information from various enterprise applications without having to open them.

Those systems include Box, Dropbox, Google Drive, Salesforce, SharePoint, and many others.

Consequently, when searching for information, employees don’t have to leave the first app they open every morning: Zoom Workspace.

In a blog post, AWS shared an example of a sales rep seeking additional information before a renewal call on Zoom.

With this integration, they could ask the AI Companion: “When is the customer’s contract up for renewal, and who signed the last one?” The AI Assistant would then pull from the index to provide an instant answer.

“AWS and Zoom are changing the future of work with our latest collaboration,” said Swami Sivasubramanian, VP of AWS Agentic AI, when sharing the news on LinkedIn.

“Q Business brings enhanced accuracy of AI responses and a secure framework to implement GenAI assistants,” he continued.

What I think customers are really going to love about this integration is that they can stay within their familiar Zoom interface and reduce the time they spend switching between applications.

Yet, perhaps most exciting is the potential for AWS and Zoom to take this collaboration further.

Consider the Amazon Q use cases the business index supports beyond extracting enterprise knowledge.

Specifically, think about how Amazon Q uses data from the index to generate content and complete multi-step tasks.

For instance, a sales or service leader could ask Q to extract key insights from a customer satisfaction survey and create visualizations to share with the team.

Meanwhile, a marketing rep might ask Q to summarize what was discussed during meetings – across collaborations apps – while they were on vacation.

There are also many use cases far beyond customer-facing functions. For instance, an HR employee could ask Q to create a job posting for a new position before creating and scheduling a social media post to promote it.

By taking the collaboration further, the tech giants could grant employees access to all these capabilities via the Zoom AI Companion.

In this sense, AWS may help Zoom become the operational center point for a business.

From that center point, employees could share cross-platform data and trigger actions across various business systems without ever leaving Zoom.

To pinch a line from Sivasubramanian’s post: “This is what workplace innovation looks like!”

How to Access the AWS-Zoom Integration

Companies should use the Amazon Q Business Data Accessor to connect Zoom’s AI Companion with the Amazon Q Business index.

Essentially, this acts as a gatekeeper, controlling what data Zoom’s AI Companion can access from the Amazon Q index and ensuring everything follows company rules and privacy settings.

Zoom’s AI Companion can connect to the Amazon Q index through this gatekeeper.

In doing so, companies can pull helpful, real-time information from a company’s internal data via Zoom without leaving the platform.

The AWS-Zoom Partnership Gathers Momentum

The partnership between AWS and Zoom is going from strength to strength.

In February, AWS announced its exit from the UCaaS market, sunsetting Chime and moving its internal teams to Zoom.

At the time, the cloud giant noted in a company blog: “When we decide to retire a service or feature, it is typically because we’ve introduced something better or our partners offer a solution that is a good fit for our customers as well as our own employees.”

Zoom is seemingly the partner providing a “good fit” solution.

Meanwhile, the Zoom Contact Center became available on the AWS marketplace late last year alongside Zoom Workplace, Revenue Accelerator, and Workvivo.

AWS made Zoom their 2024 EMEA Alliance Partner of the Year shortly after.

As that collaboration continues, the potential for Zoom to become the operational center point for business further takes shape.

According to the DMG Consulting 2024 Workforce Management report, the company has seized 33 percent of the total number of worldwide WFM seats.

In doing so, the company holds 750,000 more seats than its closest competitor.

The analysis matches industry perceptions of NICE as the “gold standard” of WFM.

These perceptions have held firm since long before it switched its primary focus and became a stalwart CCaaS provider.

Nevertheless, as its portfolio has increased, NICE has many more priorities.

Meanwhile, the WFM market hasn’t stood still, with new forecasting models, shift patterns, and AI-driven analytics coming to the fore.

As these trends rise and more CCaaS players jump on the WFM bandwagon, the question arises: is NICE WFM still the gold standard?

NICE WFM Rundown: What’s Included in 2025?

Over the years, WFM solutions have evolved to address new, emerging challenges in the workplace, from the rise of hybrid and remote work to the increasing demand for AI-powered colleagues.

As noted, NICE WFM has retained its position as a market leader, with CCaaS competitors entering the market unable to match the depth of its WFM portfolio.

Indeed, that depth is evident in the following rundown of its differentiative WFM capabilities.

Forecasting

NICE’s Best Pick Forecasting model uses 40+ algorithms, automatically selecting the most accurate one based on historical and real-time data.

The most accurate may change depending on the season or during “what-if scenarios”. NICE WFM accounts for this.

While some competitors may offer more forecasting algorithms, the ability of the platform to automatically select the best model for the specific period is a differentiator.

Why? Because it prevents planners from having to manually test each algorithm on old data to check for accuracy.

Another excellent feature is its True-To-Interval (TTI) analytics. The idea behind this is simple but powerful.

Traditionally, contact centers log contacts in the reporting period they are completed. Yet, TTI logs them in the interval they begin.

As such, resource planners can more accurately see when call volumes lift and drop, increasing forecasting accuracy.

Scheduling

From a scheduling perspective, like many other solutions, NICE WFM presents auto-scheduling features that account for agent preferences.

Agents can also change these preferences, swap shifts, and request time off via a mobile app.

While these scheduling features are advanced, much of NICE’s competition can offer something similar.

Where it differentiates, however, is in its use of AI to automatically detect live staffing shortages or surpluses to redistribute workloads. That leads to intraday management.

Intraday Management

NICE’s real-time adherence monitoring alerts supervisors to potential issues like idle times or unexpected spikes in call volume.

When these spikes occur, planners can execute an automated intraday reforecast to quickly gauge the impact of an incident and act.

Additionally, through the CXone Supervisor Workspace, planners get a full operational view – queue statuses, customer sentiment, and agent performance metrics – so they can make educated decisions to manage the incoming contacts.

Also, as previously noted,  NICE WFM automatically detects understaffing and overstaffing issues with AI, provides warnings, and keeps the team on track.

Integrations

WFM data is beneficial beyond the contact center, and there is growing demand to pull it into HR and CRM systems.

Many of the new kids on the blocks may provide good in-house integrations or connections to a specific system, but they’ll be less proven in delivering WFM data across enterprise functions.

Alternatively, NICE WFM integrates data from various sources across the contact center ecosystem. That enables intelligent workforce planning and enhances business insights.

It can work seamlessly with tools like Salesforce, Zendesk, and Microsoft Dynamics.

NICE WFM: The Latest Upgrades

NICE is committed to delivering slow, steady improvements to essential components within its WFM toolkit.

Over the past year, the company introduced two pivotal updates, among smaller additions.

These are the True to Interval (TTI) analytics solution – as highlighted earlier – and upgraded its Inventory Insights tool.

Inventory Insights complements TTI with upgrades to back office functions. It automates backlog forecasting and staffing optimization for teams both in and outside of the contact center.

By unifying front and back-office metrics, NICE enables a holistic workforce plan that fosters both efficiency and better bottom-line results.

NICE vs the Competition

NICE WFM remains a leading tool for conact centers looking to enhance their resource planning operations.

While many new contact center market entrants may put forward new offerings with fresh interfaces, these are typically foundational solutions.

In other words, they lack depth in forecasting algorithms, shift pattern customizations, and analytics.

As such, NICE and its conventional competitors – Calabrio, Peopleware (formerly injixo), and Verint – still lead the way.

Part of the reason here is that advancements in generative and agentic AI haven’t had much of an impact in the WFM space.

Yes, they’ve proved helpful in centralizing data and drawing insights for reviews. However, the nuts and bolts of scheduling and particualy forecasting have gone largely unaffected.

After all, neural networks and machine learning are still the kings of AI in forecasting.

Also, it’s worth noting that NICE can package its WFM solution with quality assurance (QA), coaching, gamification, and learning management tools.

That makes for a deep workforce engagement management (WEM) portfolio.

NICE WFM Review: Still the Gold Standard

NICE’s continued reputation as a leader in WFM comes from more than just its impressive market share.

Indeed, it has earned its place at the top of the pack.

As market entrants – expanding from the CCaaS space – evolve their offerings, it will have to keep one eye over its shoulder.

Nevertheless, ongoing investments in new WFM concepts, innovations to unify front and back-office operations, and a comprehensive WEM portfolio will help NICE prove that it isn’t just resting on a legacy reputation.

Still, it’s striving to raise the bar for what WFM solutions can offer.

Indeed, a 2023 FlexJobs survey shows that 95 percent of US employees would like to work from home “in some form”.

Most want to go fully remote (65 percent), while 34 percent would prefer a hybrid work arrangement. 

Yet, for many, the opportunity to switch to WFH is still relatively new, and there’s a lot to get used to. 

After all, feelings of isolation are commonplace despite the benefits of lower commute times and better work-life balance.

Social isolation is undoubtedly a powerful demotivator. Yet, these 21 work-from-home quotes may provide the ideal antidote to inspire managers to improve their teams’ remote performance, engagement, and well-being.

1. “People are more productive working from home than people would have expected. Some people thought that everything was just going to fall apart, and it hasn’t.” – Mark Zuckerberg, CEO, Meta Platforms Inc.

Remember that remote working can improve productivity and the model can still facilitate the employee-centric workplace.

2. “If you are working on something exciting that you really care about, you don’t have to be pushed. The vision pulls you.” – Steve Jobs, Co-Founder of Apple.

The purpose of an organization and the value of the task at hand is an excellent tool to inspire remote workforces.

3. “We like to give people the freedom to work where they want, safe in the knowledge that they have the drive and expertise to perform excellently. Yours truly has never worked out of an office, and never will.” — Richard Branson, Founder of the Virgin Group.

Keep in mind that several business leaders and decision-makers regularly worked from remote locations, even before the pandemic. There is no reason the same should not apply to an average employee.

4. “Keep a team chatroom open. There is nothing more important in a group remote project than casual communication. Not just official emails and work updates, but the ability to sit back and chat.” – David Rabin, VP of Global Commercial Marketing, Lenovo.

This quote from David Rabin reminds us to value water cooler conversations, small talk, and other essential elements that reinforce interpersonal relationships in the workplace.

5. “We can handle real live difficulties, it is the imaginary ones that cannot be conquered.” – James Borg, author of Mind Power.

Without external voices constantly reminding us about the real-world environment, it is easy to make mountains out of molehills when working from home. Try to proactively avoid this.

6. “One of the secret benefits of using remote workers is that the work itself becomes the yardstick to judge someone’s performance.” – Jason Fried, founder of Basecamp.

This work-from-home quote reaffirms that the office experience was always supposed to be about the work, which is now increasingly the case in a remote environment.

7. “I know not all that may be coming, but be it what it will, I’ll go to it laughing.” – Herman Melville, author of Moby Dick.

Resilience is one of the key lessons to learn from this WFH period, and this quote tells us about the importance of humor and not taking oneself too seriously.

8. “Always be a first-rate version of yourself, instead of a second-rate version of somebody else.” —Judy Garland, American actress and singer.

WFH has greatly empowered each and every remote worker. Use this opportunity to demonstrate and augment individual strengths.

9. “To start building your remote culture, establish and share some basic rules. The first and most important rule is mutual trust between the company and its workers. The rules after that? As few as possible.” – Larry English, author of Office Optional.

WFH employees must be confident that the organization has their best interests at heart. Additionally, organizations should aim to increase empowerment and be wary of micromanagement.

10. “Encourage all of our employees to have a disciplined schedule for when you will work, and when you will not, and to stick to that schedule.” – Dan Springer, CEO of DocuSign.

Routines and discipline do not only apply to nine-to-five hours. Encourage employees to bring the same focus to schedules and safeguard wellbeing.

11. “Successfully working from home is a skill, just like programming, designing or writing.” – Alex Turnbull, Founder of Groove.

Do not worry if the transition to WFH is more challenging than expected. Remote work is a paradigmatic shift, and employees need to ease into it, like anything else, with the proper support.

12. “Focus on being productive instead of busy.” – Tim Ferriss, American Entrepreneur and Investor.

When working from home, the lines between someone’s personal and working lives blur. In this environment, it’s easy for a busy employee to become overwhelmed and work longer hours. As such, the focus must shift from being busy to productive.

13. “People often say motivation doesn’t last. Neither does bathing – that’s why we recommend it daily.” – Zig Ziglar, American Author.

After a difficult few days at work, it’s easy for an isolated employee to feel down and have that sinking feeling slip into their everyday lives. Finding motivation every day is critical to avoid this dangerous pattern.

14. It is about workplace flexibility. It’s about giving our associates the opportunity to be who they are as an individual, whether that is a community member, a spouse or parent, or anything in between.”  –  Amy Freshman, senior director, ADP.

Workplace flexibility has shifted away from conversations about leaving early for doctor appointments or coming in late because of traffic. It has evolved into broader discussions about improving people’s way of life.

15. “People today really value workplace flexibility and remote work because it allows them to focus their energies on work and life as opposed to commuting.”  – Ken Matos, Vice President of Research at Life Meets Work.

‘Sunday scaries’ are real, and commuting is part of that post-weekend fear for many workers. Remote workers should remember that morning struggle and remain grateful that their working day starts a little later than it perhaps did previously.

16. “Technology now allows people to connect anytime, anywhere, to anyone in the world, from almost any device. This is dramatically changing the way people work, facilitating 24/7 collaboration with colleagues who are dispersed across time zones, countries, and continents.”  –  Michael Dell, CEO, Dell.

Every company boasts of the benefits of collaboration. Remote workers worldwide can join the dots needed to not only push business growth but also to develop internal and external relationships.

17. “If we could be somewhere, experiencing the world in a beautiful setting while working, challenging ourselves, growing professionally, enjoying a community of like-minded people, and connecting locally, what’s stopping us?”  –  Michael Youngblood, CEO of Unsettled.

Highlighting the idea of blending work with personal fulfillment used to be a pipedream. Living and working in a place that sparks joy and growth while being part of a supportive community is becoming the norm.

18. “When people are free to choose where in the world they want to work, they simply enjoy their day-to-day work more.” – Brian De Haaff, Entrepreneur.

Stress and anxiety around commuting and being in an office environment can sap a lot of energy out of a workforce. Working from home allows people to work from where they are most comfortable, leaving more energy to be utilized for work.

19. “So many people think the remote work community is made up of only spoiled, privileged millennials and Instagram influencers, and that’s not who we are. We’re people of all ages, from all countries and all socio-economic classes, and what brings us together is our shared mindset that we want to do something different and have adventures sooner rather than later in life.”  – Spencer Jentzsch, Head of Community at Baremetrics.

Pre-existing attitudes towards working from home still exist, but the tables are turning on these views.

20. “Work–life balance is not just a buzzy, self-help term that real business people laugh at. You need it.”  –  Stephanie Ruhle, Senior Business Correspondent for NBC News.

Many still dismiss work-life balance in high-pressure environments as less serious or even “soft.” But, in reality, it’s essential not just for personal well-being but also for professional effectiveness and sustainable success.

21. “The pandemic has shown us that remote work is not only possible but can be highly effective.” – Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google.

The pandemic forced many businesses to quickly adapt to remote work, and, as Pichai points out, it proved that it can be just as effective – if not more so – in many cases.

Final Thoughts

These quotes contain a handful of expert learnings that help us to find our bearings, garner inspiration, and wade through those darker moments that affect every one of us.

Also, they remind us to work on ourselves, find new meaning in what we do, and align our skills better to our daily deliverables to maximize the value of remote working.

As Scarlett from Gone With The Wind would say: “After all, tomorrow is another day.“

Eager to enhance the performance of remote contact center agents? Check out our article: From Burnout to Point of Pride: Calabrio Study Reveals Shift in Contact Center Agent Experience

Watch on YouTube

In this engaging discussion, Rhys Fisher, Deputy Editor of CX Today, chats with Thor Mitskog, President of Cyber Acoustics, to explore the evolving role of acoustic technology in modern contact centers. Thor reveals the thought process behind their latest headset launches – the HS-1500BT2 and AC-404ENC – and how these innovations are set to address common pain points in the sector.

Thor dives deep into their design enhancements and the problems these devices solve.

Key takeaways:

• HS-1500BT2: Features larger ear cups for comfort, cooling organic leatherette ear coverings, AI-driven noise cancellation, and dual wireless/USB functionality for versatility
• AC-404ENC: A travel-ready headset with ergonomic design, dual USB-A/USB-C connectivity, and advanced inline controls for streamlined work setups
• Pandemic Lessons: How changing work environments – from noisy home offices to acoustically challenging workplaces – have shaped Cyber Acoustics’ approach to innovation
• The Future of AI in Contact Centers: Real-time agent feedback tools and dialect-neutralizing hardware that promise to redefine industry standards

Explore the full specifications of the HS-1500BT2 and AC-404ENC by visiting Cyber Acoustics’ website.

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