AI Expands Strategic Role of Contact Centers – ISG – October 13, 2026

Contact centers are evolving from reactive, cost-sensitive organizations into customer engagement hubs with growing capabilities enabled by AI and other advances, according to new research from global AI-centered technology research and advisory firm Information Services Group (ISG).

The 2026 ISG Buyers Guides for Contact Centers find that contact center software, originally built for efficient routing and interaction management, now orchestrates workflows throughout the customer journey and uses data to improve operational and business decisions. Platforms increasingly incorporate advanced analytics, automation and self-service features. With the integration of AI, they are beginning to perform quality management, summarize interactions and use automated agents to assist human operators.

Keith Dawson

“Contact centers have become central to customer service strategies,” said Keith Dawson, director of research, customer experience, ISG. “Enterprises see them not as cost centers, but as engines for improving business outcomes such as customer experience and employee engagement.”

The ISG Buyers Guide research provides the rankings and ratings of 44 software providers and their products for managing and carrying out customer interactions. The series includes Buyers Guides focused on healthcare, insurance and retail contact centers; AI self-service contact centers; customer interaction analysis and workforce engagement management.

Contact centers have steadily migrated from enterprise premises to the cloud over the past two decades, and most new deployments use contact center as-a-service (CCaaS) platforms, the research finds. The growth of CCaaS has accelerated innovation, spawning a wide range of enhancements, including stronger data management and closer connectivity with enterprise applications. At the same time, many enterprises have moved operations to distributed workforces, a trend that expanded dramatically with the COVID-19 pandemic.

These developments have led to the introduction of new forms of automation and widespread implementation of AI for virtual agents, real-time agent guidance, workflow automation and other functions. AI has demonstrated a wide range of benefits, including improved self-service capabilities and stronger governance over data, decision-making and treatment of customers. As a result, organizations are now rethinking how contact center work should be distributed between automated systems and human agents.

Buyers of contact center platforms now focus less on mature capabilities such as routing and workforce scheduling and more on how the software could improve business outcomes. When enterprises evaluate products, they should consider the provider’s ability to meet customer experience objectives, increase agent productivity and integrate with enterprise systems, including customer relationship management and enterprise resource planning, ISG says.

“Innovations emerging today will change the face of contact center operations,” Dawson said. “It is vitally important for companies to determine how well platforms will support both current processes and future, AI-enabled operations that may be significantly different.”

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