We’re on the verge of a profound shift in how contact centers operate.
All my years of helping organizations ace their customer service operations have taught me to understand when a new development is on the precipice of broad utilization. I believe that's where we are now, with a new era of voice in the customer experience.
In a way, it’s like coming full circle. My early days in CX transformation were largely geared around killing the voice channel. Businesses felt that using digital tools was cheaper than having huge banks of contact center employees handle customer calls. But, now that technology can provide the voice channel, voice is making a huge comeback!
That said, as of mid-2025, most businesses had not yet adopted it -- at least, not on any kind of wide scale. In fact, the same is true for AI capabilities in general. A McKinsey survey found that most organizations were “still in the experimentation or piloting phase: Nearly two-thirds of respondents say their organizations have not yet begun scaling AI across the enterprise.”
When it came to agentic AI, specifically, 23% said their organizations were “scaling an agentic AI system somewhere in their enterprises.” But, even most of those were only scaling it in one or two functions. “In any given business function, no more than 10 percent of respondents say their organizations are scaling AI agents,” the survey found.
Things are changing quickly. Organizations are seeing how to introduce real-time speech systems powered by LLMs (large language models) that are truly conversational and natural. They’re learning lessons from early adopters. Leaders I hear from, across a wide range of industries, tell me they’re ready to deploy in big ways.
This means interactive voice agents will become popular – even commonplace. But, it also means a whole new competition will be underway. The businesses that win will be the ones that use the best tools. Instead of getting caught up in hype, they’ll make shrewd decisions to invest in the right solutions.
The new fast lane
The best real-time speech systems no longer force customers through IVR (interactive voice response) menus and established, predictable scripts. Instead, these voice tools operate with open-ended dialogue from the very beginning. They then respond fluidly and adapt in real time.
Crucially, they also handle multiple steps at the same time, without transferring calls or asking customers to repeat information. This is a sea change, and a key strength of AI over human agents.
These changes help make voice the new “fast lane.” The best communications platforms for businesses of all sizes -- from smaller organizations to enterprises -- bring together these features into a single, smooth customer experience. This way, customers can now turn to voice for complex, emotional, and even urgent matters, and expect quick resolution.
Look for top containment rates
In choosing your new communications tools that deliver all these results, look for containment metrics. As Nextiva explains , “The containment rate measures the percentage of customer inquiries fully resolved by AI tools.” Containment is especially important to customers, of course. As the International Customer Management Institute notes , gains made by agentic AI “plateau quickly when built on outdated processes.”
The best contact solutions use new processes. They’re built on platforms that pull together all the information the organization has about each customer. That's essential in order to deliver a genuinely personalized experience. It’s another reason I’m a huge fan of Nextiva’s XBert , an AI receptionist that handles a wide array of tasks. Nextiva pioneered the UCXM, a unified customer experience management platform, which ends data silos and provides hyper-personalized experiences. (I have a business relationship with Nextiva, but all opinions are my own.)
For years, organizations have talked about the future of voice assistants. But, I expect the year ahead will be the tipping point. The technology pieces are available and proven to work. They’ll help the top contact centers transform into new, proactive, intelligent customer experience (CX) engines, when deployed in the right way.
Organizations that take advantage of this opportunity will reap rewards -- shaping brand loyalty and operational performance like never before.
About the author: Wayne Butterfield is Partner for AI, Automation, and Contact Center Transformation at ISG . An automation pioneer, he guides businesses through digital transformation, as well as cognitive and AI automation, in ways that transform customer service. An early adopter of RPA in 2010, he created one of the first enterprise-scale RPA operations. For more than 15 years, he’s been at the forefront of new technologies and pioneering solutions. He helps ensure organizations sidestep pitfalls and swiftly harness the power of modern technologies for efficiency and growth.
Edited by
Erik Linask
