NiCE Signs $955 Million Deal to Acquire Cognigy

NiCE have just announced a $955 million definitive agreement to acquire Cognigy, a global provider of conversational and agentic AI solutions.

The deal, unanimously approved by NICE’s Board of Directors, includes a $50 million time-bound holdback and is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2025, pending regulatory approvals.

The acquisition will integrate Cognigy’s AI capabilities – including its platform, Cognigy.AI, which supports autonomous AI agents in over 100 languages – into NICE’s CXone Mpower platform. This move aims to streamline AI-driven customer service across front- and back-office operations.

Watch the video below where Call Centre Helper’s Xander Freeman spoke to Barry Cooper, President NiCE CX, about the acquisition:

Scott Russell, CEO of NiCE, said, “This is a landmark moment for NiCE, a strategic move that fast-tracks our AI innovation agenda and sets a new standard for customer experience in the AI era.

By bringing a market leader in enterprise-grade conversational and agentic AI into the fold, we are accelerating global AI adoption, expanding into new global markets, and creating game-changing value for our customers, partners, and shareholders. Together, we are significantly advancing the future of AI-first customer experience.”

Cognigy, which serves clients such as Mercedes-Benz, Nestlé, and Lufthansa Group, is projected to achieve approximately 80% annual recurring revenue growth in 2026.

Philipp Heltewig, Cognigy’s CEO and Co-Founder, stated the acquisition marks a significant milestone for the company, offering growth opportunities for both customers and employees.

Philipp Heltewig, Co-Founder and CEO of Cognigy, concluded, “This transaction represents a pivotal step forward for Cognigy, one that brings immense opportunity for our customers and employees.

NiCE is an exceptional organization whose global reach, deep expertise, and relentless focus on innovation will accelerate our growth and enhance the value we bring to our customers and partners.

Together, we are uniquely positioned to shape the future of customer experience, uniting the best of trusted AI and human interactions.”

For immediate insights into what this news means for the wider customer contact industry, we spoke to Finbarr Begley, Senior Analyst for CX and Enterprise at Cavell:

“This is a smart and aggressive move from NICE. They’ve acquired a market leader in an area where they needed more depth – conversational and agentic AI.

By bringing Cognigy in-house, NICE now owns the orchestration layer others relied on as a neutral partner. That presents a real challenge for competitors hoping Cognigy would build the future for them, so they wouldn’t have to.”

Justin Robbins, Founder and Principal Analyst, Metric Sherpa, added:

“The Cognigy acquisition gives NiCE the engine it needs to deliver on a long-standing CX promise: automated, intelligent action across every layer of the customer journey.

“With Cognigy’s builder and orchestration capabilities, NiCE is on an accelerated path to design systems that take input from customer interactions and immediately trigger fulfillment, resolution, or outreach.

The early traction will absolutely come from the contact centre, where the demand for automation is high, the workflows are structured, and the ROI is easier to prove.

But what stood out in an analyst-only executive briefing was how intentionally NiCE is aligning this with back-office momentum.

They’re not just adding conversational depth; they’re targeting the operational silos like fulfillment, sales, marketing, and service, that have traditionally slowed down CX delivery. Connecting those dots is what moves this beyond contact centre efficiency and into real enterprise transformation.

Their platform is evolving from reactive support to proactive, outcome-driven execution. That’s the shift to watch.”

We’ll be publishing more on this news in the coming weeks, along with further analysis from industry experts. Stay tuned for more!

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About NiCE CXone

NiCE (NASDAQ: NICE) is transforming the world with AI that puts people first. Our purpose-built AI-powered platforms automate engagements into proactive, safe, intelligent actions, empowering individuals and organizations to innovate and act, from interaction to resolution. Trusted by organizations throughout 150+ countries worldwide, NiCE’s platforms are widely adopted across industries connecting people, systems, and workflows to work smarter at scale, elevating performance across the organization, delivering proven measurable outcomes.

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Author: Hannah Swankie
Reviewed by: Xander Freeman