As innovation accelerates and customer expectations shift, the future feels more exciting and uncertain than ever before. But what’s on the horizon as we head into 2026?
To find out, we asked the technology experts for their key CX and contact centre predictions set to shape the year ahead, so you can embrace the opportunities they present to your colleagues and customers alike.
Humans and AI Will Amplify Each Other’s Strengths
In 2026, the contact centre will fully embrace the augmented workforce, where humans and AI work side by side, amplifying each other’s strengths.
Leaders will recognize that AI isn’t a silver bullet but a force multiplier that reaches its full potential only through human collaboration.
The focus will shift from quality assurance used to assess performance to quality intelligence: using data to understand why outcomes happen, and balancing quantitative metrics with qualitative assessments like customer feedback, peer reviews, and scenario-based evaluations.
As measurement becomes more nuanced, rigid adherence to scripts or AI prompts will fade too. Human agents will increasingly handle exceptional cases requiring flexibility, empathy, and creativity.
Contributed by: Gal Rimon, CEO & Founder, Centrical
Team Leaders Will Benefit From Immediate Insight on Performance and Demand Spikes
Generative AI built into CX and analytics platforms will move contact centres from data gatekeeping to true data empowerment, allowing teams to dig into complex datasets just by asking natural-language questions.
This will remove the need for specialist tools or high levels of data literacy, allowing managers to focus on delivering outcomes rather than wrestling with dashboards.
This shift will speed up decision-making by removing the reliance on central reporting teams and analysts. For example, team leaders will be able to ask questions about performance, quality assurance, sentiment, or demand spikes and receive immediate insight.
Contributed by: Luke Cuthbertson, Head of CX Consulting Practice at Route 101
Use Cases for Video Will Continue to Gain Traction
With GPT now mainstream, organizations are increasingly moving beyond chat to AI voice, which can handle many of the same complex scenarios previously managed by GPT-powered chatbots while offering a more natural, effortless experience.
In 2026, these enhanced automation capabilities will free CX teams to differentiate their service with a new premium support layer: live video.
This is not a replacement for automated channels, but an option for situations where visual context meaningfully improves clarity or engagement.
Already established in telehealth, video is gaining traction in product support, troubleshooting, and financial services, where being able to see a customer’s situation or creating a stronger sense of trust can make a significant difference to FCR and the customer experience.
Contributed by: Chandan Mehta, VP Product Marketing, Enghouse Interactive
AI Will Need to Prove Its Value Through Measurable ROI – Not Unsubstantiated Claims
2026 will be the year when AI needs to prove its value through measurable return on investment (ROI), rather than artfully scripted demos and unsubstantiated claims.
Inevitably, this has brought matters to a point where anything that happens in AI is magnified: both success and failure.
Across industries, leaders will be under pressure to show where AI and intelligent automation are genuinely transforming processes and improving outcomes.
Unlike most other areas of business, the Customer Experience (CX) department has the foundations already laid to make AI work, with people, processes, and data already optimized and ready to receive AI.
When the dust settles, CX will come to be recognized as one of the few places where AI’s early promise survived the ‘trough of disillusionment’ intact – a pathfinder for other sectors seeking to implement AI effectively.
Contributed by: Martin Taylor, Co-Founder and Deputy CEO, Content Guru
Platform-Led Integration Will Make It Easier to Introduce Agentic Workflows
Fragmented tech stacks have long slowed progress. In 2026, platform-based approaches led by IT will dominate, making it easier to introduce agentic workflows across the organization.
These platforms will connect front, middle and back-office systems, eliminating silos and enabling true end-to-end automation.
For contact centres, this means less complexity, faster deployment and more consistent customer experiences. Integration isn’t just a technical win – it’s a strategic one, giving organizations the agility to adapt quickly and deliver service that feels effortless.
Contributed by: Lewis Gallagher, Senior Solutions Consultant, Netcall
CPaaS Could Kill the Contact Centre
I’m a strong believer that AI in CX should be about augmenting and helping human agents.
As we see a wider take-up of rich communication services (RCS), we are going to see companies try to fully automate as much of their customer experience as possible, and it could lead to a point where communications platform as a service (CPaaS) will overtake the contact centre as the thing that becomes most important to vendors and what they supply to their customers.
RCS opens the door to this. It delivers rich media with the ability to shop, browse catalogues, rebook tickets and deliveries, organize refunds, and make payments – all through an SMS gateway.
If an organization has AI helping with user journey orchestration, it could even handle complex engagements without the need of flowing through to a human.
However, not every organization is shaped up for this – and it may not be what their customers want, which is a vital consideration.
Contributed by: Chris Angus, VP for CPaaS and CX Expansion, 8×8
AI Will Outperform Humans in Empathy and Complexity
AI won’t just match humans in understanding customer sentiment; it will surpass them. Thanks to advances in multimodal models, real-time sentiment detection, and personalization, AI systems will deliver empathy, nuance, and context at scale.
Imagine the AI calmly rebooking stranded travellers during a storm or guiding a customer through a stressful roadside emergency; it’s not just solving the problem but recognizing tone, urgency and emotion in real time.
This will redefine what “exceptional” customer experience means: faster, more personalized, and emotionally intelligent.
Human agents will still be essential, but their focus will shift to creativity and exceptional cases, while AI handles the complex, emotionally intelligent interactions once considered uniquely human.
Contributed by: Matt Price, CEO and Co-Founder, Crescendo
AI Governance Boards Will Give Way Entirely to a Compliance-First Model
Just a year ago, governance boards proliferated across organizations, helping to guide AI investment and deployment decisions.
But in 2026, I predict that these governance boards will become a less important buying group as organizations become more focused on compliance.
CallMiner’s own research found that 71% of organizations have a dedicated AI governance function in place, but that doesn’t mean those functions are helping to drive secure, responsible, effective AI adoption.
In fact, 67% of those same organizations agree that they are implementing AI without the governance structures needed to manage risk.
So why the sudden reversal in the focus on governance? AI is moving faster than anyone can keep up with, and as regulations like the EU AI Act come into effect, organizations will be forced to treat AI oversight as a requirement – because it is. The days of voluntary governance are numbered.
In a few years, governance boards will give way entirely to a compliance-first model – one where responsible, strategic AI isn’t optional, it’s law.
Contributed by: Jeff Gallino, CEO and Co-founder, CallMiner
CX Will Become a True Board-Level Priority
Customer experience won’t sit in the contact centre alone. It will become a true board-level priority, and the defining question will shift from “how do we reduce handle time?” to “how do we create low-effort, emotionally intelligent service?”.
The big unlock will be agentic AI that supports a “human-in-flow” model. Instead of forcing agents to jump between systems, re-enter data, or guess the next best step, AI will quietly orchestrate context, summarize interactions, and surface guidance in the moment. It will take the cognitive load off people, so they can focus on listening, empathy and building trust.
The organization will benefit too, as leadership will finally get visibility across the whole customer journey rather than isolated touchpoints or channel silos.
Contributed by: Tara Aldridge, Strategic Services Director, Vonage
KPIs Will Need to Adapt to a Mixed “Digital + Human” Workforce
2026 will be another year of AI agents – but this time, less hype and more reliable production use.
Simple, repetitive contacts (password resets, balance checks, order changes) will be handled end-to-end by AI across voice and digital channels. Human agents will focus on complex journeys, emotional conversations, and exceptions.
The real shift will be operational: routing, staffing models, and KPIs will adapt to a mixed “digital + human” workforce.
Leaders will ask not “Can AI handle calls?” but rather “Which interactions should humans never waste time on?” and “How do we design escalation paths that feel supported, not automated?”.
Contributed by: Gennadiy Bezkorovayniy, CEO, MiaRec
Companies Will Re-Evaluate Their Self-Service Deflection Strategies
Companies will focus intensely on personalization and re-evaluating their self-service deflection strategies.
Why? Many leading brands believe they previously over-deflected customer conversations in a push for automation and cost savings. This often left high-value or highly empathetic conversations (those impacting revenue or customer lifetime value) improperly handled by bots.
The new focus will be on ensuring the right interactions are routed to a human and then ensuring those humans are empowered with AI assistants to deliver brilliant CX.
Contributed by: Matthew Clare, VP, Product Marketing, UJET
Human Skills Will Become the Real Differentiator in an AI-Driven Industry
After attending #CCExpo this year, one theme was impossible to ignore: almost every prediction for 2026 centres on agentic AI, autonomous workflows, and the rapid rise of automation in the contact centre industry.
And while these technologies will absolutely reshape operations, the most forward-thinking conversations weren’t about replacing people but about empowering them.
As routine tasks become automated, human skills like empathy, problem-solving, and judgement will become more valuable, and these will be the real differentiator between contact centres that simply adapt AI in their WFM vs. the ones that truly embrace it.
This is also validated by Peopleware’s 2025 WFM Benchmark Report. Organizations that build these skills and redesign roles around AI are more likely to see clearer outcomes, e.g., higher customer satisfaction, lower attrition, and faster resolution times, turning human capability into their competitive edge.
Contributed by: Zainab Ahmed, Marketing Manager, Peopleware
Contact Centres Will Evolve From Support Centres Into True Revenue Engines
By 2026, the biggest shift won’t just be more AI in the contact centre, it will be how well you understand and govern it.
I see a world where every interaction, whether handled by a human, chatbot or voicebot, is measured through the same lens of quality, fairness, emotion and business impact.
Conversation intelligence extends beyond people to include AI agents in one unified quality framework, giving leaders full visibility into the customer journey, while continuously refining bot and human performance to the same high standard.
The result: contact centres evolve from support centres into true revenue engines, identifying upsell and cross-sell moments, reducing churn, and increasing lifetime value. In 2026, the winners won’t be those who automate the most but those who understand every conversation – and act on it.
Contributed by: Magnus Geverts, VP Product Marketing, Calabrio
The Best CX Leaders Will Drop Legacy Metrics and Vanity Dashboards
According to CallMiner’s 2025 CX Landscape Report, 62% of leaders admit they’re not using their CX data to their best advantage. What that says to me is the problem isn’t a lack of data, it’s not knowing what to do with the data.
Just as AI produces ‘slop’ that needs to be improved upon and filtered out, the best CX leaders will drop legacy metrics and vanity dashboards in favour of outcome-driven, ROI-centred data that informs measurable action.
In the year ahead, the winners will be the ones brave enough to hit ‘delete’ on low-value inputs and transform data ‘slop’ into a strategic advantage.
By collecting the right information and data that truly moves the needle, leading organizations will be able to drive smarter automation, enhance human performance, align teams around a single source of truth, and turn insight into action – ultimately fuelling growth.
Contributed by: Eric Williamson, CMO, CallMiner
2026 Will Be the Year Companies Finally Sort Out Their Data
It’s not sexy, but 2026 will be the year businesses finally sort out the foundations they’ve been ignoring, including data.
For AI and cloud transformations to reach their potential, data must be up to date, accurate and well structured.
Yet, for years, organizations have rushed into digital change, layering new technologies onto old processes, and many now realize success depends on getting their house in order.
This means consolidating systems, rethinking workflows, and creating the operational structure that allows technology to deliver genuine value. It might not sound glamorous, but tidying up is essential before transformation can take hold.
Contributed by: Lisa Orford, VP for Contact Centre at 8×8
Leaders Will Fear “Missing Out” More Than “Messing Up”
Over the last year, we’ve seen contact centres move from a fear of messing up with AI to a real fear of missing out. Teams were cautious at first – nobody wanted to automate the wrong thing or compromise quality.
That’s now really starting to shift. Leaders understand where AI adds value, particularly when it comes to QA, and they’re leaning in quickly.
It’s exciting because the conversation has moved from experimenting with AI to using it to get actionable insights that make a genuine difference to customer experience.
Contributed by: James Marscheider, CCO, evaluagent
2026 Will Redefine What Contact Centres Can Achieve
2026 promises to be a landmark year for customer experience, where AI, human skill, and data converge to redefine what contact centres can achieve.
The trends are clear. Yes, automation will handle increasingly more routine interactions, and AI will deliver unprecedented emotional intelligence at scale. Yet human agents will still be required to focus on creativity, empathy, and complex problem-solving.
Ultimately, the winners will be those that embrace the possibilities of the augmented workforce to gain a truly competitive edge!
If you are interested in learning more about what 2026 holds, check out our webinar: Innovations and Trends for 2026 and Beyond
For more great insights and advice from our panel of experts, read these articles next:
- Create a “Win–Win” Self-Service Strategy
- What’s Happening With Forecasting Right Now?
- Stay Ahead in QA and Call Recording
Author: Megan Jones
Reviewed by: Jo Robinson
Published On: 3rd Dec 2025
Read more about - Call Centre Management, 8x8, Agentic AI, Artificial Intelligence (AI), Calabrio, CallMiner, Centrical, Chris Angus, Compliance, Content Guru, Conversational AI, Crescendo, Customer Experience (CX), Enghouse Interactive, EvaluAgent, Key Performance Indicators (KPIs), Leadership, Lewis Gallagher, Lisa Orford, Magnus Geverts, Management Strategies, Martin Taylor, Matthew Clare, Metrics, MiaRec, Netcall, Peopleware, Performance Management, Predictions, Route 101, Self Service, Soft Skills, Tara Aldridge, Team Management, Technology Enablement Strategy, Top Story, UJET, Video Solutions, Vonage, Zainab Ahmed
