Now that 2025 has ended, we’ve been looking back at the things that changed and looking ahead to 2026. Emerging trends are always a fun thing to talk about at the start of the new year, and
UC Today published a great article at the turn of 2025 going over what trends they expected to see emerge. When I say “they” in this context, I mean a crack team of executives from NUWAVE, GoTo, and Zoom, pillars of the UC industry. This includes NUWAVE COO Mark Bunnel, GoTo General Manager of UCaaS Damon Covey, and Head of Contact Center and CX Sales EMEA at Zoom Ben Neo.
As we’ve reviewed the year and our own perspective on emerging trends, we’d like to do the same to the UC Today team. We’ll see just how vindicated these execs were.
Mark talked to UC Today about the adoption of new technology. As more businesses move away from their legacy systems, they look for platforms and tools that will enable seamless communication while addressing modern concerns with fragmented ecosystems and cyberattacks.
“The players that can provide multi-UC management/enablement, branded communications, and AI-powered solutions will stand out in this rapidly evolving industry,” he told UC Today. “These trends emphasize the importance of agility and innovation as UC continues to redefine how we work, connect, and collaborate.”
This was a slam dunk observation from Mark. With the phasing out of the PSTN, legacy systems have never been more difficult to maintain. While many organizations still rely on phased migrations to avoid the costly effects of the rip-and-replace method, the future belongs to the cloud.
UC includes both internal and external communications, and Damon was convinced that the external option, customer communications, was the trend to watch for 2025.
He told UC Today, ““As the market moves to adopt widely available AI, functions like customer service will become increasingly valuable differentiators, and fostering customer experience soft skills within internal teams will be a focus for business leaders.
Employees who can meaningfully connect with customers outside of contact center settings will go a long way in building loyalty, especially if they track, analyze, and optimize these interactions to provide maximum customer value and a blueprint for success to other workers.”
Damon's prediction proved to be highly valid for 2025. Key stats in the CX world show that as much as 87% of customers avoid a brand after a single bad customer service experience. To put it another way, US companies collectively lose $75 billion each year due to CX hiccups.
Ben looked at how AI could break silos working as a technological assistant to boost CX.
He told UC Today, “In the next year, customer experience will change from being the sole responsibility of the contact center to something that the whole company works together to deliver, powered by AI. With AI automating tasks in the background, business leaders will integrate teams both within and beyond the contact center, breaking down silos to deliver truly excellent customer service with personalized, accurate responses in seconds.”
Once again, a slam dunk from the execs. AI has become a staple of both UCaaS and CCaaS, operating in the background to automate tasks and free up ancients to handle the human element. This technology helps them create personalized experiences in seconds.
We’ll keep this article short, but there’s definitely more to explore. The executives who spoke to UC Today had a lot to say about the integration of other tools, especially AI, and new security features being rolled out in UCaaS solutions.
We highly recommend any of our readers check out what they had to say. 2025 may have come and gone, but those predictions remain incredibly relevant.
We also look forward to our own contribution to the UC landscape. Our platform, Continuant Connect, is designed to streamline communications across platforms, making it easier for businesses to manage complex environments and integrate new technologies as they emerge.
As 2026 continues, be sure to check back with our blog for more content on AI, cybersecurity, and all things UCaaS and CCaaS.