Who says the contact center space is moving slowly? In early April, I attended 8X8's Analyst Summit 2025, where company leaders outlined their vision for transforming customer experience (CX) through an integrated, AI-enabled ecosystem. There was so much content about recent and upcoming trends that I needed to take some time to analyze the discussions before sharing this now long-overdue recap of the event.

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Typically known for its unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaS) solutions, 8x8 is increasingly focusing on its role as a multi-product communications intelligence platform -- one designed to deliver meaningful business outcomes, not just digital transactions. 

That evolution reflects a broader market trend: the traditional boundaries between UCaaS and CCaaS are fading. Buyers no longer want disconnected platforms. They want seamless, AI-enhanced, outcome-oriented ecosystems.

At the event, 8X8 CEO Sam Wilson and CMO Bruno Bertini emphasized that the future of CX lies in an integrated platform, supported by curated partnerships designed to address unique needs, intuitive user experiences, and a unified data architecture. Some of the important and useful insights reported by company leadership at the event were that, over the past year:

• AI-powered CX usage grew by 84%
• Voice AI interactions rose by 160%
• Self-service volumes increased by 130%
• SMS-based interactions climbed 41%

Woven across each of these use cases was increasing use of AI capabilities. To this point, company leaders shared the same perspective several times: "AI is not the product; the experience it powers is." To deliver results at scale, AI must not be another bolt-on capability but should rather be embedded holistically across platforms to enhance decision-making, routing, self-service, and agent support.

The company mentioned that its tools, such as Journey IQ and the AI Orchestrator, deliver predictive insights and enable seamless transitions between bots, agents, and channels. As more business leaders turn to test and deploy agentic AI capabilities, fluid use of AI agents and orchestrating the use of multiple agents, while ensuring seamless transition to and from humans, is crucial.

Partnerships remain key to the company's CX- and AI-centric approach. 8x8's ecosystem now includes strategic integrations with NICE, Verint, Calabrio, Cognigy, Meltwater, Regal.ai, and others. These partners span a wide array of areas, including CRM, social listening, payments, compliance, and vertical-specific use cases. With partner integrations, 8X8 aims to appeal to enterprise buyers managing complex operating environments and tech stacks, and who are increasingly challenged with stitching point solutions.

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Of course, not every development in the AI field is in agentic AI. Employee guidance (copilot-like capabilities) continues to prove useful. On that point, the company emphasized its partnership with Verint for knowledge management, designed to empower agents with contextual (AI-enabled) guidance.

Lastly, there's (finally) increased recognition across business leaders that the back office is a critical part of the CX value chain alongside customer-facing departments, such as service, sales, and marketing. Conversations at the 8X8 Analyst Summit reflected the trend, with company leaders and analysts spending considerable time discussing how successful CX is not just about the contact center or marketing and sales, but rather the whole business working cohesively to deliver consistent, personalized, and intelligent experiences. 

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