PARTNER MODEL MORPHS Vibe Coding Pitfalls 5G Redcap Rolls FALL 2026 Sponsored by BEATING BAD OUTCOMES Volume 25 Issue 4 | channelvisionmag.com CX ORCHESTRATION UPGRADES
FALL 2026 AI & AUTOMATION 8 IT hiring up despite AI 8 Closing the CX loop 10 AI outpaces governance 12 Vibe Coding Pitfalls AI coding is creating a new risk gap; technology advisors can help close it By Dr. Prince Kohli 16 Accelerating Conversational AI Telnyx helps businesses rapidly build, deploy and scale customizable AI-powered agents By Gerald Baldino EVERYTHING-AAS 18 The CX Orchestration Gap Contact center infrastructure in line for upgrades By Martin Vilaboy 24 AI Receptionists: UC’s Next Growth Lever Zultys AI Receptionists extend the value of UC, creating a competitive advantage for partners MOBILE & WIRELESS 26 RedCap Rolls Forward 5G RedCap gains momentum, bringing affordable 5G connectivity to IoT By Gerald Baldino CHANNEL MANAGEMENT 32 The Morphing Partner Model Satisfaction and switching can coexist within changing customer expectations By Martin Vilaboy 36 A Cleaner Bill of Health Your billing process is costing you more than you think By Victor Lopez 38 Don’t Just Attend. Execute. Turning trade shows, summits and holiday networking into 2027 revenue By Glen E. Nelson CORE COMMUNICATIONS 40 Beating Bad Outcomes Why tech investments fail to achieve intended returns By Martin Vilaboy 42 A Smarter Approach to Service Canyon GBS helps organizations modernize service delivery, creating opportunities for partners By Gerald Baldino 44 Putting POTS Replacement in Motion TELCLOUD helps partners turn legacy telecom modernization into recurring revenue By Gerald Baldino 46 A Launchpad for Providers Telinta’s white-label VoIP and UCaaS platform makes it easy and affordable for partners to offer telecom services 48 An Avenue to Retail Revenue National Retail Solutions helps SMB retailers streamline operations while driving recurring revenue opportunities for partners CYBERPATROL 50 C losing the Loop on Data Security TechBros helps partners expand services with secure data destruction, responsible IT asset disposition 52 CVxEXPO26 Education Sneak Preview 6 Editor’s Letter 56 ICYMI 58 Ad index CONTENTS Volume 25 – Issue 4 4 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
Channel partners are experiencing unprecedented change in the way managed services are delivered and the expectations among those to which they are delivered. As IT environments grow increasingly complex, MSPs and technology advisors face growing pressure to move well beyond reactive support, vendor vetting and managing service-level agreements toward a more consultative approach that includes oprerational advocacy, industry-specific expertise and strategic guidance. As researchers at AWS put things, customer IT departments literally want advisors “who think like owners” of the customer’s business. Indeed, providing a customer with proactive guidance and measurable business outcomes have become as important to client delivery as reliable connectivity and cost-competitive voice services. The educational agenda at CVxEXPO26 was developed specifically to help channel partners navigate this transition to moving beyond transactional selling. That is especially so for this year’s Keynote Panel Series, which was designed to provide insight from up and down the indirect sales chain. That starts with the IT Buying Circle Keynote Panel of SMB decision makers, who will discuss the changing technology challenges they face and how those shifts impact what they need and expect from a partner advisor. Next our Tech Advisor Keynote Panel of channel sales veterans will unveil where the opportunities are for channel partners on Main Street today. From POTS replacement to AI in UCaaS platforms to cybersecurity and managed services, this panel will cut through the hype and get to what’s real right now. And finally, round two of our TSD All-Star Keynote Panel will examine what has changed in the channel since last year’s panel, how the role of the technology advisor is transforming and what TSDs are doing to facilitate those transformations, as well as how AI is impacting growth and success. As a special kickoff to the main stage presentations, CVxEXPO26 will host a live, on-site episode of “The Top Gun Show,” the premier LinkedIn and YouTube video interview podcast hosted by Steve Farmiloe. Steve’s special guest on the first-ever live episode of “The Top Gun Show” will be AI agent strategic evangelist and author James Tennant, who currently serves as Global Channel Chief for Quiq.com. James and Steve will be discussing the AI opportunity for partners, where the money is, and AI’s true impact in the contact center. And since there are a few better ways to exhibit strategic competency to potential clients than certified training, AI solutions marketplace Palomarr will be hosting its AI Academy series of certification courses at CVxEXPO26. What’s more, a schedule of concurrent breakout sessions once again anchors the unrivaled educational experience. Sales training, cybersecurity, AI and business outcomes are the dominate themes of the breakout sessions, which kick off with a no-BS sales and marketing workshop presented by veteran channel sales and marketing strategists Ronnell Richards and MaiLee Langley. “Stop Guessing, Start Selling” is a two-part, hands-on workshop designed to help channel partners shift from random acts of sales and marketing to a targeted strategy around the markets, buyers and opportunities they are most likely to win. We look forward to seeing you in Phoenix for CVxEXPO26 this November and continuing our mission to inform and celebrate the channel. ‘Proactive’ Education at CVxEXPO26 LETTER Martin Vilaboy Editor-in-Chief martin@bekabusinessmedia.com Gerald Baldino Contributing Editor gerald@bekabusinessmedia.com Percy Zamora Art Director percy@bekabusinessmedia.com Jen Vilaboy Ad Production Director jen@bekabusinessmedia.com Berge Kaprelian Group Publisher berge@bekabusinessmedia.com (480) 503-0770 Beka Business Media Berge Kaprelian President and CEO Corporate Headquarters 10115 E Bell Road, Suite 107 - #517 Scottsdale, Arizona 85260 Voice: 480.503.0770 Email: berge@bekabusinessmedia.com © 2026 Beka Business Media, All rights reserved. Reproduction in whole or in any form or medium without express written permission of Beka Business Media is prohibited. ChannelVision and the ChannelVision logo are trademarks of Beka Business Media 6 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
Friction out. Momentum in. Let’s win more deals together. Last quarter, one of our partners brought us into a complex multisite rollout across the U.S. The customer needed reliability, carrier diversity, and a single point of accountability—fast. Together, we simplified the process, coordinated rollout with dedicated Project Management, and continue to delivery on-time turn-ups of multiple sites per day. No stalled approvals. No confusion. Just a smooth path to a signed deal and a happy customer. That’s the Granite difference. We remove friction so you can focus on selling, not managing complexity. Book a Co-Sell Strategy Session Today What this means for you: • Fewer barriers to closing deals • Nationwide and Canadian coverage with multiple carrier options • A trusted team that moves at your speed If you’ve partnered with Granite before, now is the time to accelerate. If you haven’t, there’s no better moment to start winning together. Let’s hit the ground running. GRANITENET.COM/PARTNERS
Even though the year began with some high-profile tech layoffs, while many experts predicted that AI might be a drag on employment and hiring, it turns out a larger percentage of IT departments have been adding staff since any point before the 2008 Great Recession. In a bit of a twist, new findings from Avasant suggest AI might have companies actually building talent in order to transform their organizations into being AI-ready. According to the research firm’s most recent “IT Spending and Staffing Benchmark” study, 64 percent of companies are increasing IT head count, and only 11 percent are decreasing the size of their internal IT staff. This is both the largest number increasing head count and the smallest number decreasing it since at least 2008. As further comparison, only 48 percent of companies planned to grow their IT staff last year. “It is highly likely that a significant portion of this hiring is driven by AI and machine learning,” said Avasant researchers. As organizations move from experimentation to implementation, they are expanding the teams required to support data-intensive and AI-enabled initiatives, they continued. Avasant noted recent growth in roles such as financial analysts, business analysts and database professionals, all likely part of an effort to scale AI and the use of large datasets. This year, the firm also added AI/ML architects and engineers as a distinct staffing category in its survey, and already these roles account for approximately 2 percent of IT head count on average, with variances by size and sector. “In addition to staffing growth, we are also seeing significant investment in technology designed to help companies get AI-ready,” said David Wagner, senior research director at Avasant. “This includes data analytics and business intelligence, but also, more importantly, we are seeing a major increase in spending in recent years to upgrade legacy systems.” Incidentally, CIOs are feeling particularly bullish. Exactly two-thirds report that, despite modest budget increases, they have an adequate budget to support the demands of their enterprise. This is the highest level of budget confidence Avasant has recorded in the past decade, surpassing last year’s previous high of 59 percent. “CIOs are not only investing in growth but also feel increasingly equipped to support their organizations’ strategic priorities,” said the research firm. Every customer interaction teaches a company something, but the lesson rarely travels beyond the person or AI agent that handled it, said executives at Zenarate. That runs the risk of the same problems coming back again and again. In turn, Zenarate has positioned itself as a frontline performance platform for humans and AI. It helps enterprises take what every interaction teaches, share it across their people and AI agents, and make sure it improves the next customer experience. “We see this pattern all the time,” said Rob Wright, chief product officer at Zenarate. “A customer talks to an AI agent or a person, and the conversation ends without escalation. But the problem isn’t fixed, so they call back a couple of days later.” From the company’s side, that first call often gets marked a success because the rubric used to evaluate it shows the frontline team member followed the process. But the customer had to do the work twice, Wright continued. The company had what it needed to catch that but never surfaced it or acted on it. “We can now follow that customer’s journey across every contact and change the definition of success: ‘did the problem get solved?’” he continued. “AI agent tuning, associate training and coaching, and process fixes are now all automatically tied to that standard.” The goal is to make people and AI agents better at the same time. People get better through simulation practice and coaching. AI agents get better through a knowledge fix, a workflow change or a smarter escalation rule. Zenarate connects the two through shared evidence, so each side makes the other better. Escalations and AI interactions show where associates need more preparation, and what top-performing associates do shapes how AI agents are built. “Information is not improvement until something changes,” said Brian Tuite, CEO of Zenarate. “Every company’s frontline is becoming people and AI working together. The companies that pull ahead will learn the fastest from every customer interaction, so the next customer gets a straight answer and moves on with their day. That’s what we’ve built Zenarate to do.” IT Hiring Rates Defy AI Doomsayers Zenarate Closes the CX Loop AI & AUTOMATION Organizations Changing IT Head Count Increasing 64% No change 25% Decreasing 11% Source: Avasant Research, 2026 8 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
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Concerns about data security, privacy and regulatory compliance continue to top the list of barriers for SMBs implementing AI-based technologies, show new figures from GTIA, signaling clear opportunities within these areas for IT service providers and advisors. But when SMB decision makers were asked specifically how IT service providers and partners could help them with AI tech, employee training on how to use AI effectively was number one on the list. Vendor vetting also was high on the list of priorities, followed by the familair trio of security, integration and governance. New findings from JumpCloud suggest organizations are giving AI agents access to systems faster than they can secure them. More than half of organizations surveyed now use AI agents that can change systems, permissions or files. However, among organizations using these agents, 59 percent do not follow the same governance rules that human users must follow. Likewise, 72 percent of organizations report a considerable gap between what AI is allowed to access and what they can prove it actually accessed. And while nearly every respondent (99 percent) said they were confident in their organization’s ability to audit AI activity, only 37 percent admit to being fully prepared with the records, logs and evidence an audit would require. “That disconnect is becoming more consequential as AI moves from assisting users to acting on their behalf,” said JumpCloud researchers. In terms of actual incidents, 92 percent of organizations report experiencing at least one AI-related incident or exposure in the past 12 months, and more than one-third (36 percent) investigated an AI-related concern but were unable to determine what the AI had accessed. “AI agents are quickly becoming another class of identity in the enterprise. They can access sensitive systems, change records, trigger workflows, and act on behalf of people, but many organizations still aren’t governing them with the same rigor they apply to human users,” said Joel Rennich, senior vice president of advanced technologies & innovation, JumpCloud. “Every agent needs clear ownership, appropriate access, and controls that follow it throughout its lifecycle.” AI Accelerating Transition from Transactional AI Access Is Outpacing Governance AI & AUTOMATION SMBs Cite Top AI Opportunities for ITSPs 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% Training our employees on how to use AI effectively 38% Help identifying the right AI tools for our business needs 38% Assistance integrating AI tools into our existing systems 31% Assessing our cybersecurity and compliance risks related to AI 29% Developing AI governance policies and guidelines 28% Help building an ROI or business case for AI investment 27% Providing a readiness assessment to identify where AI can add the most value 26% Ongoing management or monitoring of AI tools and their performance 24% Source: GTIA AI Governance and Security Controls in Place 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% 50% Non-human identity governance 26% Formal AI usage policy 29% Role-based access controls for AI 37% Approval workflows for high-risk action 38% Shadow AI monitoring 40% Monitoring or logging AI activity 42% Centralized revoke/rollback ability 43% Restrictions of data shared with AI 43% Source: JumpCloud; survey of IT decision makers 10 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
The future of IT and network management is here. AireSpring empowers global enterprises with fully managed, best-of-breed IT and network solutions, delivering seamless connectivity, security, and uni ed communications. At the heart of our solutions is AIreCONTROL, our AI-powered IT Service Management platform, designed to consolidate IT, security, and connectivity into one intuitive platform. With real-time visibility, proactive automation, and AIOps intelligence, you gain complete control over your entire network ecosystem. AI-driven ITSM: Automate network management and security in real-time. Seamless Connectivity: Integrated SD-WAN, SASE, UCaaS, rewalls, and global circuits. AIrePOD Tier 3 Support: Expert engineering for guaranteed performance. Global Reach: Thousands of providers, including Starlink business internet. Why AireSpring? Learn more at https://airespring.com/airecontrol/ Telephone: +1- 888-389-2899 Email: sales@airespring.com AireSpring’s AI-powered ITSM platform, AIreCONTROL, puts real-time visibility, automation, and control at your ngertips. Unify IT Secure Networks Simplify Management
12 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026 Writing code used to be the slow part of software development. AI changed that almost overnight. Developers now produce in an afternoon what once took a week, and every business that builds software is trying to take advantage of it. The trouble is that writing code was never the only constraint. Someone still must confirm the code works, is safe and won’t embarrass the company or put it in regulatory trouble once customers touch it. That part did not speed up, and the increasing distance between the two is where risk is clearly piling up. For MSPs and technology advisors, that gap and its solution is an immediate opening to help customers. Recent research from Sauce Labs and Wakefield Research found that developers are producing 741 percent more code with AI assistance, while release velocity improved by less than 20 percent. Organizations create far more than they can confidently validate and ship. By Dr. Prince Kohli AI coding is creating a new risk gap; technology advisors can help close it Vibe Coding Pitfalls AI & AUTOMATION Share of production code that is AI-generated 17% 54% 21% 7% 0–10% 11–25% IS AI-GENERATED Source: Wakefield Research, surveys of business and engineering leaders 26–50% >50%
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Some reaches production anyway. Eighty percent of the organizations surveyed traced a production incident back to AI-generated code, and 53 percent said they knowingly ship code with critical issues. Those teams are not careless. They are under pressure to keep pace, and the review and testing process they built for humanspeed development strains and often fails under the volume. This is no longer a developer problem or a QA problem. A defect that escapes into production becomes an outage, a security exposure, a frustrated customer or a financial hit. Those are the issues your customers already look to you to resolve Telling developers to slow down is not realistic nor the right approach. The productivity gains are too attractive, and no competitive business should give them up. MSPs’ customers will keep adopting AI coding tools, with or without a plan for what surrounds them. In a recent survey, 92 percent of enterprises doubted their existing safeguards could catch AI failures before they reached users. Throwing people at the problem didn’t fix it either. Sixty-four percent of respondents increased QA headcount during the past year, and incidents still went up. Customers need guidance on how to make the end-to-end software release work at the speed of AI, not just the initial code writing. That, coupled with appropriate human governance and release controls, is what will allow your customers to gain both competitively and economically from the new AI era. From AI adoption to AI assurance The first wave of enterprise AI services focused on selection, deployment and integration. Partners helped customers pick tools and get them running. While that foundational work continues to matter, the next wave measures ROI. Customers now must show that AI-generated code is also reliable enough to go into production at close to the speed at which it is being created. That matures and moves the conversation toward release assurance, testing strategy, governance, observability and risk. This gives partners a straightforward place to start. Look at where code enters the client’s development lifecycle. Notice that the next step is always code validation, which is historically highly manpower intensive. It requires creating the right tests (unit tests, functional tests, system tests and many more) and making sure they cover everything the application is supposed to do, including how and where it should fail and on all desired endpoints. Think native apps on iOS or Android or various browsers on various operating systems to begin with, and you start getting a sense of how hard this is. Then one needs to run these tests on the actual devices of interest, diagnose any failures, fix the code or the test, and so on until one is certain of the code quality. Tough, isn’t it? And imagine what occurs when suddenly the code is being written at 10x the pace and lower quality than earlier. This is why customers are looking for help from trusted experts and partners. Providers can help bring the right tools to help verification keep pace with code writing, and when done well, actually free up to 90 percent of the time development teams spend on testing. Hence the earlier claim about being better for the customers both commercially and in terms of ROI. Software Shipped to Production with Known Issues in Past Year FREQUENCY PERCENTAGE Frequently 6% Sometimes 47% Rarely 37% Never 11% Source: Wakefield Research, surveys of business and engineering leaders Business Consequences Experienced from Software Defect, Past 12 Months 0% 10% 20% 30% 40% Negative media coverage 40% Loss of a major contract/customer 38% Regulatory inquiry or fine 34% Customer lawsuit / legal action 33% Stock price impact 30% Executive departure 27% Source: Wakefield Research, surveys of business and engineering leaders 14 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
An example of such tools would be one that automatically picks up application intent, creates stable tests based on it, runs these tests, self-diagnoses and self-heals. An MSP or IT advisor who helps customers identify and deploy these in their software development will create great ROI immediately. Measure what matters Among enterprises using AI testing tools, 89 percent report positive ROI, showed the Wakefield Research findings. That sounds great until you look at what they measure. The research above found that teams tend to emphasize speed and output and give far less attention to defect escape rates or post-deployment incidents. This is another place where MSPs add real value. They help enterprises build KPIs that tie their AI investments to business outcomes. Developer productivity and release velocity still belong on the dashboard, but they should sit next to production incidents, escaped defects, remediation time, release confidence and customer impact. The question to ask is not, “Did AI help us produce more code?” It is, “Did AI help us deliver better software safely?” If a client can only answer the first one, they only see half the picture. Two-thirds of surveyed organizations said their worst software-quality incident in the past year cost at least $500,000. Nearly four in 10 said they lost a major customer because of a software defect. The scale of these numbers makes AI code release assurance a conversation for the whole leadership team. A CIO, CISO or board member will pay attention to those figures. When quality is framed as revenue, reputation and customer retention, it stops being an engineering topic and becomes a business one. MSPs that translate a technical verification challenge into plain business risk will earn a bigger seat at the table as AI adoption grows. AI removed one of software development’s oldest limits: the speed at which people write code. It did not remove the need to verify that code before customers depend on it. For partners, the opportunity is bigger than helping customers adopt AI. The next era of the channel will be defined by assurance: helping enterprises prove that software generated at machine speed is safe to release at machine scale. As AI-generated code becomes routine, MSPs and advisors can become the verification layer between rapid development and production, embedding continuous validation and measurable safeguards into the AI stack. o Prince Kohli is CEO of Sauce Labs with nearly 30 years building AI-driven enterprise solutions. 15 FALL 2026 | CHANNELVISION
Demand for conversational AI is skyrocketing, but building reliable, cost-effective agents remains challenging. Developing new solutions often requires integrating multiple providers, adding cost and complexity. Telnyx simplifies the process by bringing the essential components together in one place. The company combines dedicated AI infrastructure, global connectivity and multilingual support on a single platform, enabling businesses to rapidly build and deploy customizable AI-powered agents. After launching in 2009 as a consultancy specializing in call center installations, Telnyx eventually became a fully licensed telecom carrier. Today, the company has evolved into a full-stack conversational AI platform and continues to expand its capabilities. For example, on October 2, Telnyx made its AI Gateway management and security tool available in Mission Control, its web-based management portal. “Customers can now set up a gateway for each team, choose which models that team can use, whether Telnyx-hosted models or their own OpenAI and Anthropic keys, and cap spending by team, person or end user,” said Ron McNab, channel chief at Telnyx. “Guardrails can flag or block sensitive data like card numbers, Social Security numbers and secrets before they ever reach a model. The gateway itself is free; customers pay only for the inference.” Earlier this fall, the company also announced support for OpenAI GPT-Live in Telnyx Voice AI Assistants and the beta launch of Telnyx Agent Memory. “Telnyx Agent Memory gives AI agents a long-term memory of each customer. What a caller told you on the phone is still there when they text you three weeks later, and the customer can see and delete exactly what is stored,” McNab said. “We also added OpenAI GPT-Live, a full-duplex speech-to-speech model, as an option in our Voice AI Assistants. Since then, we have added WhatsApp coexistence and support for multiple transcription models per assistant, which improves multilingual accuracy. The theme is simple: everything a team needs to build, run and govern an AI agent, on one platform.” Telnyx currently offers a robust partner program for channel and referral partners, agencies and distributors. “You do not need to be an AI expert to work with Telnyx,” McNab explained. “Our partners are experts in their customers, and that is the most valuable thing they bring to the table. Our job is to make the AI part easy. Partners get a dedicated channel team, training on positioning Telnyx as infrastructure for AI and communications, discovery questions and ideal customer profiles, competitive positioning, and sales engineering support on customer calls. The best AI opportunities often start with a familiar conversation: a contact center struggling with hold times, a business moving off legacy phone lines, or a software platform that wants to add voice. Bring us in early, and we will help you scope it and close it.” Partners also can leverage Telnyx to expand beyond borders and bring conversational AI into emerging markets. “We own our network, and run AI inference on GPUs located inside it, so the phone number, the voice and the model sit side by side,” McNab said. “That is what keeps latency low enough for a natural conversation. India is a good example. In September we added SIP anchor sites in Mumbai and Chennai, so calls stay local. Indian mobile numbers now work with our Voice AI Agents, and our voices cover 12 Indian languages, including Hindi, Tamil and Bengali. For partners, that means one supplier, one contract and one portal for a customer operating in many countries. A U.S. contact center expanding into India, or a software company launching in Latin America, does not need a new carrier in every market. That is recurring revenue that grows as the customer grows.” As an added benefit, Telnyx is fully committed to privacy and data security, making the company a trusted AI resource for partners and customers. In fact, Telnyx was recently mentioned by TrustedRouter as one of 16 AI providers with zero data retention. “When a request goes to a Telnyxhosted model, it is processed in memory and discarded as soon as the response is returned,” McNab said. “We do not store the prompt or the output. We keep only operational metadata, such as timestamps and token counts, for billing. TrustedRouter tracks 98 AI providers, and Telnyx is one of only 16 that meet its zeroretention bar on every route. That matters to buyers in healthcare, financial services and government. It also fits how we have always operated. Because we own the network, customer data is not passed through a chain of third parties, and tools like the AI Gateway guardrails and the Agent Memory delete controls keep customers in charge of their own data.” Partners can access Telnyx through TSDs including Telarus, Sandler Partners and AppDirect, with Intelisys onboarding underway. “Our partner program is consistent across our distributors, so agents can work through the TSD they already know,” McNab said. “Partners are always welcome to reach out to me or my team directly. And anyone can sign up for Mission Control and start testing within minutes.” o Telnyx is a Platinum Sponsor of CVxEXPO. Visit the team in booth 4003, and keep an eye out for Bob the Telnyx Robot walking around the show floor. Accelerating Conversational AI Telnyx helps businesses rapidly build, deploy and scale customizable AI-powered agents 16 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026 AI & AUTOMATION
2026-27 Telarus Tech Trends Report NEW TELARUS.COM/TECHTRENDS Technology budgets are growing—but buyer expectations are changing. Organizations are seeking strategic technology advisors to simplify complex environments, unify investments across AI, cloud, infrastructure, cybersecurity, and CX, and deliver measurable business outcomes. The Trends Shaping Your Next Big Opportunity Discover the three shifts shaping technology decisions, and the playbook advisors can use to drive strategic growth. SCAN ME
When AI tools were first introduced into the contact center, consumers were somewhat apprehensive about bots taking over the customer service experiences. Initial thoughts were that companies would place callers into some sort of doom loop in which they could not escape to a real human when interactions went awry. Fast forward to the current time, when consumers have become more familiar using artificial intelligence tools in their personal and professional lives, and the vast majority of customers simply don’t care if it’s a human or an agent on the other side, as long as their situation is resolved. If anything, AI has reset expectations in terms of the speed, personalization and efficiency delivered within the customer service experience. Interacting with systems that provide faster answers, more natural interactions and lower effort no longer feels exceptional; it feels expected. In turn, CX leaders are beginning to understand that legacy infrastructure often must be updated and upgraded to meet expectations. Make no mistakes, the stakes are as high as the expectations. Today’s consumers don’t judge the experience provided by an organization in isolation, and they don’t just compare experiences between direct competitors. They compare against every customer experience (CX) they’ve had, suggest findings from Genesys in its “2026 State of Customer Experience” report. A full 92 percent of consumers surveyed for the study said they expect organizations to match the best experience they have ever had anywhere. As many as three-quarters of respondents, meanwhile, expect AI to improve the quality, speed and level of personalization of customer service within the next two to three years. And woe to organizations that fail to deliver. A full 91 percent of consumers The CX Orchestration Gap Contact center infrastructure in line for upgrades By Martin Vilaboy AT YOUR SERVICE: XaaS 18 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
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say a company is only as good as its customer service. “And the bar is rising — that’s a staggering nine percentage points higher than in our 2025 report,” said Genesys researchers. All the while, 42 percent of consumers said they stopped buying from a brand after a poor customer service experience, while 43 percent said they spent less with a brand that failed to meet CX expectations. “In today’s experience economy, CX has a direct impact on customer loyalty, lifetime value and brand equity,” said the report. Perhaps most important to CX leaders, 95 percent of consumers say it’s important for a company to move their interaction from one channel to another and pass along information already shared. Yet more than half of CX leaders said their companies still do not pass previously collected information to a representative or agent during a customer interaction. Perhaps that’s not surprising considering that only 31 percent of CX infrastructure is fully in the cloud, showed the Genesys findings, a percentage that remains unchanged from the 2025 report. “This matters because many of the most advanced CX capabilities — critical to equipping organizations to meet rising customer expectations and deliver truly outstanding experiences — depend on being in the cloud and having a modern CX platform that can orchestrate experiences,” argued the report. AI-powered tools, real-time analytics, integrated data and crosschannel routing are difficult to scale when systems remain fragmented or constrained by legacy infrastructure, the report continued. “Agentic orchestration raises the stakes further, because AI must be able to act, consistently, across the same connected environment it uses to understand the customer.” None of which is lost on CX executives, who are quickly learning that legacy systems can make it hard to Top Strategic CX Priorities for Next 12 to 24 Months 1 Increasing customer value and loyalty 2 Attracting, developing and retaining top CX talent equipped to work effectively alongside AI 3 Modernizing the CX technology stack to support cloud, AI and future innovation 4 Scaling AI adoption across customer experience 5 Expanding the use of AI-powered self-service and virtual agents 6 Automating CX workflows and processes with AI Source: Genesys Consumer Expectations with Customer Experiences 76% Expect AI to improve the quality and speed of customer service in next two to three years 75% Expect AI to improve the personalization of customer service in next two to three years 95% information already shared 91% Say a company is only as good as its customer service 90% Define a company by its service 57% Would definitely or probably switch to a competitor after experiencing a lack of empathy in a customer service interaction 85% Have spent less or stopped purchasing from a brand after poor customer service 84% Will give a virtual agent just three attempts to resolve an issue 43% Spent less with a brand after a poor customer service experience 42% Stopped buying from a brand after poor customer service experience Source: Genesys CX Leaders Three-year AI Outlook 86% Expect AI to be part of every customer interaction 84% Expect customers to manage their own needs without interacting with a person 90% Expect a significant portion of routine CX tasks to be automated 73% Expect customers will be unable to discern the difference between human and AI-powered CX agents Source: Genesys Top AI Challenges for CX Organizations 46% Keeping up with pace of AI innovations 46% Managing and maintaining data for use with AI 44% Readiness and technical ability to adopt AI at scale 42% Demonstrating AI return on investment 40% Having the right technical skill to implement AI Source: Genesys Top Strategic CX Priorities for Next 12 to 24 Months 1 Increasing customer value and loyalty 2 Attracting, developing and retaining top CX talent equipped to work effectively alongside AI 3 Modernizing the CX technology stack to support cloud, AI and future innovation 4 Scaling AI adoption across customer experience 5 Expanding the use of AI-powered self-service and virtual agents 6 Automating CX workflows and processes with AI Source: Genesys Consumer Expectations with Customer Experiences 76% Expect AI to improve the quality and speed of customer service in next two to three years 75% Expect AI to improve the personalization of customer service in next two to three years 95% information already shared 91% Say a company is only as good as its customer service 90% Define a company by its service 57% Would definitely or probably switch to a competitor after experiencing a lack of empathy in a customer service interaction 85% Have spent less or stopped purchasing from a brand after poor customer service 84% Will give a virtual agent just three attempts to resolve an issue 43% Spent less with a brand after a poor customer service experience 42% Stopped buying from a brand after poor customer service experience Source: Genesys CX Leaders Three-year AI Outlook 86% Expect AI to be part of every customer interaction 84% Expect customers to manage their own needs without interacting with a person 90% Expect a significant portion of routine CX tasks to be automated 73% Expect customers will be unable to discern the difference between human and AI-powered CX agents Source: Genesys Top Strategic CX Priorities for Next 12 to 24 Months 1 Increasing customer value and loyalty 2 Attracting, developing and retaining top CX talent equipped to work effectively alongside AI 3 Modernizing the CX technology stack to support cloud, AI and future innovation 4 Scaling AI adoption across customer experience 5 Expanding the use of AI-powered self-service and virtual agents 6 Automating CX workflows and processes with AI Source: Genesys Consumer Expectations with Customer Experiences 76% Expect AI to improve the quality and speed of customer service in next two to three years 75% Expect AI to improve the personalization of customer service in next two to three years 95% information already shared 91% Say a company is only as good as its customer service 90% Define a company by its service 57% Would definitely or probably switch to a competitor after experiencing a lack of empathy in a customer service interaction 85% Have spent less or stopped purchasing from a brand after poor customer service 84% Will give a virtual agent just three attempts to resolve an issue 43% Spent less with a brand after a poor customer service experience 42% Stopped buying from a brand after poor customer service experience Source: Genesys CX Leaders Three-year AI Outlook 86% Expect AI to be part of every customer interaction 84% Expect customers to manage their own needs without interacting with a person 90% Expect a significant portion of routine CX tasks to be automated 73% Expect customers will be unable to discern the difference between human and AI-powered CX agents Source: Genesys Top AI Challenges for CX Organizations 20 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
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connect channels, manage data, scale AI and deliver the holistic experiences customers now expect, suggested the Genesys findings. For the first time since the 2023 Genesys survey, CX leaders did not name “keeping up with rising customer expectations” as their biggest operational challenge. Instead, the inability to maintain quality of service while operating aging CX infrastructure was the number one concern in 2026. For organizations still relying on on-premises or disconnected infrastructure, the risk is becoming more visible, said the Genesys study. “Modern CX requires more than adding new tools to existing environments. It requires a unified platform that provides the foundation to orchestrate experiences at scale and deliver growth and customer loyalty.” What’s more, modern CX extends beyond the contact center and requires more than front-office engagement. Customer issues often depend on middle- and back-office processes, from billing and fulfillment to claims, service operations and account management, Genesys executives pointed out. “For CX teams to resolve those issues effectively and efficiently, the platform needs to connect the systems where work actually happens,” continued the study. Again, CX leaders recognize their reality, as nine in 10 say their CX platform will likely be integrated with middle- and back-office systems within three years, while about three-quarters said implementing a customer experience platform that integrates and interoperates with other enterprise systems is critical to reaching strategic CX goals. Two-thirds of respondents said connecting front-office engagement to back-office execution is critical to reaching those goals. Today’s CX platforms must understand not only who the customer is and what they need, it also must be aware of what has already happened and which action should come next. All the while, AI agents need access to the right data, systems, workflows and guardrails so they can act in ways that are relevant, governed and aligned to business outcomes, Genesys researched pointed out. “That level of coordination is difficult to achieve when data, channels and workflows are spread across disconnected systems,” the study argued. Add it all up, and cloud migration and platform integration appear to be on the nearterm horizon for many contact center operators. o Customers More Comfortable with AI CX Consumers have become increasingly comfortable with AI taking a more active role in their CX interactions, showed a comparison of surveys performed this year becoming increasingly familiar with AI agents in their everyday lives and partly due to positive experiences they have had with AI-powered CX. According to a September 2025 survey of U.S.-based adults by CX content company Execs In The Know, the primary concern for consumers when using an AI-powered or self-help solution to resolve a customer care issue was easy access to a live person. Jump to a recent survey from Genesys, and a full 76% of consumers said they do not particularly care whether their issue is resolved by a person or AI, as long as it is solved quickly and completely. That compares to a similar survey from Genesys in 2025 in which 72% of consumers were worried that organizations using AI for customer service will make it impossible to reach a human agent. said their feelings about AI-powered CX are more positive than they were two years ago, while three quarters believe AI will improve the quality and speed of customer service in the next two to three years consistency of experiences across industries, the tolerance for friction, repetition and disconnected Source: Genesys Top AI Challenges for CX Organizations 46% Keeping up with pace of AI innovations 46% Managing and maintaining data for use with AI 44% Readiness and technical ability to adopt AI at scale 42% Demonstrating AI return on investment 40% Having the right technical skill to implement AI Source: Genesys 22 CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026
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As AI continues to reshape workflows, organizations are naturally expecting more from their unified communications platforms. According to Metrigy, companies are now prioritizing AI capabilities, seamless contact center integration and richer collaboration experiences. This is raising the bar for partners, while also creating new opportunities to add value. Zultys is helping partners extend the value of UC with AI. Earlier this year, the company introduced an AI Receptionist that seamlessly integrates with the Zultys UC platform, enabling conversational interactions for inbound callers. “Zultys’ AI-powered voice agent essentially serves as an intelligent front desk receptionist service,” explained Darrell Van Wagner, Senior Enterprise Architect at Zultys. “This solution gives partners the opportunity to enhance customers’ UC platforms while addressing the growing demand for practical, AI-powered business solutions.” ChannelVision: How does Zultys AI Receptionist differ from auto attendants and other AI receptionists? Darrell Van Wagner: Unlike traditional auto attendants that rely on predefined menus and keypad selections, Zultys AI Receptionist uses conversational AI to answer questions and intelligently route calls. It stands out from other AI receptionist solutions through its high level of configurability and ability to send Call Attached Data (CAD) to agents at the moment of transfer. This means agents receive data such as call summaries, CSAT and call quality scores, providing valuable context for what was discussed with the AI Receptionist for more personalized interactions. Another key differentiator is its builtin Dual-Tone Multi-Frequency (DTMF) recognition, giving callers the flexibility to interact using their voice or keypad. Callers can answer questions by pressing digits or bypass the AI conversation entirely by pressing zero. Zultys AI Receptionist also supports up to 10 languages and can be configured to meet HIPAA compliance requirements. CV: What advantage does Zultys AI Receptionist give partners in the UC market? DV: Zultys AI Receptionist enables partners to capitalize on demand for both AI-powered voice and UC. As we explained in a recent white paper, both markets offer significant revenue opportunities. Metrigy found that nearly 65 percent of organizations plan to increase UC spending in 2026. At the same time, the voice assistant market is on pace to reach nearly $60 billion by 2033 according to Astute Analytica. Partners can use UC as an entry point to expand AI conversations and create new revenue opportunities. CV: How can partners effectively position Zultys AI Receptionist to customers? What’s the value proposition? DV: Our solution delivers safe, reliable AI at the most important customer touchpoint. Admins control what information the AI can access and how it responds. The AI receptionist uses only approved sources and connects callers to a live expert when it doesn’t have the answer. By deploying an effective AI receptionist, companies can reduce friction during the customer experience — creating positive first impressions and reducing customer churn. CV: Can you share any use cases involving Zultys AI Receptionist? DV: Zultys AI Receptionist can be deployed across multiple industries, such as automotive, education, healthcare, local government and multi-location retail, among others. For example, one HVAC and plumbing business recently implemented Zultys AI Receptionist to automate high-volume, repetitive inquiries. The business was able to improve operational efficiency, while delivering faster, more consistent service across all locations 24/7. CV: How can partners start effective conversations around Zultys AI Receptionist? Can you share any tips? DV: Just like with most other technologies, we recommend focusing on business outcomes. Try to uncover operational challenges related to staffing constraints, long wait times and customer churn. Then introduce Zultys AI Receptionist as a possible solution. At the end of the day, this is an easy and highly effective way for clients to deploy across their communications environments. For additional insights, our white paper contains specific discovery questions that can help uncover CX pain points and set up Zultys AI Receptionist as a solution (scan QR code). Zultys is a Bronze Sponsor of CVxEXPO26. Stop by booth 4006 to meet the team and learn more about Zultys AI Receptionist. Zultys AI Receptionists extend the value of UC, creating a competitive advantage for partners By Gerald Baldino Zultys’ Darrell Van Wagner CHANNELVISION | FALL 2026 AT YOUR SERVICE: XaaS AI Receptionists: UC’s Next Growth Lever 24
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