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2026 is shaping up as a defining year for the contact centre software sector, with Ai, consolidation and new market entrants set to reshape the landscape.
That’s because organisations today are alive to the fact that what used to be known as the call centre has evolved into so much more than that. For many businesses, their contact centre has become their primary interface with the world – and the chief source of the customer experiences upon which they’ll be judged.
Little surprise then that Grand View Research estimates that the global call centre Ai market will reach USD 7.08 billion by 2030, growing at a CAGR of 23.8 per cent from 2025 to 2030. Gartner also predicts that within the next five years agentic Ai will automatically resolve 80 per cent of common customer service issues without human intervention.
Here are some of the trends we can expect to see unfolding in this space in 2026.
Hyperscalers Tackling The Market Head-On
While historically AWS, Google and Microsoft weren’t brands associated with the contact centre sector, that isn’t holding them back from pursuing this large and growing market. Deeply invested in the Ai race, expect them to continue investing in optimising their platforms to appeal to enterprise customers across the region.
Mergers And Acquisitions Continuing Apace
In earlier years, the contact centre market was awash with solutions from vendors of all stripes and sizes. As traditional tech siloes collapse, the number of choices is beginning to shrink. This year has seen consolidation start to set in, with NiCE acquiring Cognigy, Dialpad acquiring Surfboard (WFM) and the $2 billion acquisition of Verint Systems by Thoma Bravo.
There’ll be more of the same in 2026, as vendors seek to scale up, achieve critical mass and leapfrog the competition in the Ai innovation stakes. For customers, the mergers and acquisitions trend raises concerns about whether any solution they select will still be supported a year or two from now. The biggest players stand to benefit, being best placed to reassure customers of long-term support.
CRM Providers Making Their Move
The hyperscalers aren’t the only new entrants seeking to secure a slice of the contact centre market. Well-established CRM vendors Salesforce, ServiceNow and Zendesk are pushing into the space too. They are expected to gain traction over the next 12 months, making strategic investments and locking in deals with flagship customers, backed by their reputations for enabling strong customer relationships.
Getting The Whole C-Suite Involved
Not long ago, a decision to upgrade the contact centre platform was often left to the contact centre manager. That has changed. With capacity and importance growing, decisions about what technology – including Ai – to deploy are now involving a range of C-suite executives. Procurement processes increasingly include CFOs, CIOs, CMOs and CTOs as organisations seek to contain costs, improve experiences and extract insights.
Trust, Security And Privacy Are Critical To CX
The contact centre’s role as critical corporate infrastructure has also made it a prime target for hackers and cyber-criminals. Businesses will be scrutinising the security credentials of vendors more closely in 2026, along with their support models and escalation arrangements.
Reimagining The Customer Journey With Ai
The question of whether Ai has a part to play in the contact centre may be answered, but the question of how remains open. Businesses will continue to explore agentic Ai and ways to redefine customer journeys in 2026, working with vendors that can help them experiment.
Voice Ai is expected to grow, with businesses demanding seamless speech-to-speech conversations with minimal latency. Those that use Ai to augment and empower agents, rather than replace them outright, will deliver stronger customer experiences. By contrast, those that deploy Ai without considering context and impact may see negative feedback reflected in their customer experience scores.
 Audrey William, Founder and Principal Analyst, Crayon IQ,
and Michael Clark, Founder, CXTT Consulting.
Last Updated on October 17, 2025 by Audrey William
