CX Today

Christopher Carey sits down with Gaurav Anand, Global Head of Customer Interaction Suite at Tata Communications, to explore why customer journeys break down in real enterprises—not because of channels, but because backend systems aren’t interconnected and critical context gets lost. Gaurav unpacks the “customer journey black hole,” explains why AI pilots are creating POC fatigue, and outlines the need for an “AI operating system” that connects systems, restores context, and enables multi-agent coordination.

The conversation also covers what true “journey completion” means operationally (relevant context, low latency, and strong guardrails), how AI agents differ from bots and IVR, where TX Hub fits in the enterprise architecture as an orchestration layer on top of the contact center ACD, and why governance controls like audit trails and compliance are non‑negotiable as AI starts taking action across systems.

 Community platforms have come a long way from siloed, one-off research tools – and the next evolution may be closer than you think.

CX Today sits down with Kimberly Bastoni, Chief Go-To Market Officer at Alida, to explore the three generations of community platforms, what enterprise customers expect today, and how AI and automation are set to fundamentally reshape how brands gather and act on customer insight.

From fragmented toolsets to unified intelligence platforms, Kimberly shares what enterprise leaders need to do right now to stay ahead — and why the research industry as we know it is about to change dramatically. 

In this special UC Today interview, host Kristian McCann sits down with Gnosoulla Tsioupra‑Lewis, Chief People & Culture Officer at Arc Network—the organization behind HR Tech Europe. Together, they explore how AI is transforming HR leadership, workforce design, and culture across Europe. If you’re leading change, reimagining your employee strategy, or heading to HR Tech Europe 2026 in Amsterdam, this discussion offers unmissable insights from one of the event’s central voices.

Tsioupra‑Lewis shares a first-hand perspective on the tensions shaping today’s people function and how HR Tech Europe is helping practitioners move from inspiration to application.

Key takeaways from the conversation:
🔵 Why “speed vs readiness” has become HR’s defining tension in 2026—and how leaders can strike the right balance.
🔵 How AI is shifting from theory to real-world impact, transforming workflows and redefining trust and capability.
🔵 The evolving role of CHROs as “ambiguity absorbers” navigating complexity with confidence.
🔵 What makes HR Tech Europe unique—deep practitioner exchange, transparent storytelling, and focus on real results, not just ideas.

If you’re attending HR Tech Europe this April, connect with UC Today on-site to share your perspective. 

For more insights on the future of work, subscribe to UC Today, and to explore our HR Tech Europe coverage leading up to the event visit https://www.uctoday.com/

Zeus Keravala breaks down why the FCC's bold new ruling is less of a compliance headache and more of a long-overdue wake-up call for enterprise CX.

In this discussion, Associate Editor Rhys Fisher sits down with Zeus Keravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research, to unpack the FCC's proposed rules targeting offshore call center operations. 

The new regulation would require companies to disclose when calls are handled offshore, mandate domestic agent transfer options upon request, and introduce tighter data accountability standards. 

With 8x8 CEO Sam Wilson already weighing in publicly, the industry is paying close attention — and Keravala doesn't hold back on what it really means for CX leaders, IT teams, and the global BPO economy. 

The FCC's new offshore call center proposal isa labor, data security, national security, and customer experience story all rolled into one. 

Zeus Keravala rates its significance an 8 or 9 out of 10, and here's why: 

🔴 AI as the great equalizer: Re-onshoring raises costs, but AI-powered tools — from real-time language translation to virtual agents handling high-volume, low-complexity calls — could offset those costs significantly, potentially making domestic operations economically viable. 
🔴 Compliance belongs to IT now: Keravala argues that IT pros, not legal teams, are best positioned to own compliance here — using AI-driven PII redaction, automated call volume tracking, and smart routing to hit regulatory caps without the manual overhead. 
🔴 Unified stacks get a tailwind: Vendors like 8x8 have been pitching integrated UCaaS/CCaaS platforms as the cleaner architectural answer, and this regulation could accelerate that consolidation — particularly for mid-market contact centers. 
🔴 Global economic ripple effects: Countries that rely heavily on BPO contracts as a primary economic driver stand to feel the impact, though Keravala notes that the rise of AI-handled interactions may have been shifting that landscape regardless.

For more Customer Experience tech news visit https://www.cxtoday.com

AI is already changing the contact centre from a transaction factory into a hub for complex problem solving. In this CX Today roundtable, Rob Wilkinson is joined by Martin Teasdale (Team Leader Community), Steve Morrell (Contact Babel), Sangeetha Rai (Barasch and McGarry), and Rebecca Wetteman (Valoir) to unpack what that shift does to the metrics leaders rely on.

The panel explores why legacy KPIs like average handling time (AHT) start to mislead when AI takes the simple work and leaves agents with emotional, high-stakes interactions. They also discuss what leaders should measure instead, how to avoid agent burnout, and why AI tools only work when agents trust them in real customer moments.

 In this CX Today interview, the Vodafone and Teleperformance veteran explains why “contact” increasingly signals failure in a world where customers expect digital self service to work. When something breaks, it’s no longer an admin query. It’s a problem to fix fast.

Ross maps a simple but powerful chain leaders can take to the board: degraded service equals failure, failure drives customer effort, effort creates frustration, and frustration drives churn. That link matters because the cost of always on availability is visible immediately, but the cost of poor service shows up later as revenue leakage.

He also highlights the people impact. Peaks in demand during incidents pile pressure onto agents and customers alike, and the fallout can include the churn of tenured customers and tenured agents. Lose experienced agents and you lose operational knowledge, which makes repeat failure more likely.

To keep service investment honest, Ross shares four metrics he’d include on a monthly board slide, and calls for CFO and CMO alignment around Lifetime Value and retention. 

 If you’re investing in contact center AI, you’re probably balancing two pressures at once: move fast, but do not get trapped. In this CX Today interview, Nicole Willing speaks with Rhys Harris, Product Director AI at Content Guru, about what AI lock in actually looks like in practice and how CX leaders can build a stack that stays flexible as models, regulations, and pricing change.

Harris breaks down early warning signs that teams are drifting into a closed ecosystem, the biggest mistakes organizations make when they rush into transformation, and what the cloud era taught the industry about hidden costs and long contracts. 

Harris also shares three non-negotiables for buying real flexibility: governance and compliance assurance, swappable models that work across languages and regions, and vendor-agnostic orchestration based on transparent benchmarking. 

From hidden fan bases to agentic AI campaigns, Amperity’s Derek Slager reveals how Amperity is rewiring how sports teams, and every bran, act on customer data in real time. 

Introduction: In this discussion, host and Associate Editor Rhys Fisher sits down with Derek Slager, Co-Founder and CTO of Amperity, to unpack the uncomfortable truth about fan engagement in professional sports: most teams are sitting on fragmented, incomplete data — and it's costing them. 

With the NFL draft on the horizon and agentic AI reshaping what's possible in marketing, this conversation is essential viewing for anyone serious about closing the gap between data collection and real-time customer action. 

Main Description: The Seattle Seahawks discovered 5,000 fans they didn't know existed. Sound far-fetched? Derek Slager says it's more common than you'd think, and the reason is simpler than you'd expect. 

The fragmented data problem: NFL teams often have single-digit data teams juggling 20+ disconnected systems — ticketing, POS, merchandise, social — with no unified fan view. 

What "holistic" actually means: Amperity defines it as stitching together every touchpoint across the full fan lifecycle, from pre-game engagement to post-event merchandise follow-ups. 

CDPs as systems of intelligence: Slager breaks down how Amperity's new Customer Data Agent moves beyond data storage to real-time campaign generation — strategy, analysis, and execution in one motion. 

The universal lesson: Whether you're an NFL franchise or a retail brand, the advice is the same — stop theorising, start doing. The teams getting AI value today are the ones willing to go first. 

Next Steps: 

🔗 Explore Amperity's Customer Data Agent at amperity.com 

📖 Read more CX + AI coverage at cxtoday.com 

💬 Share this with your data or marketing team and ask: "Do we actually have a unified customer view?" 

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 In this CX Today interview, host Nicole Willing speaks with Barbara Dondiego, CEO of AVOXI, about how voice AI and the shift to virtual, software-based voice infrastructure are transforming contact centers.

The conversation covers what’s happening behind the hype – why most organizations are still only using AI in 5–10% of real-world deployments today, which use cases are working, like simple call containment and reservations, and how the agent role is evolving from admin-heavy work to outcome-based performance tied to CSAT, revenue, and complex problem-solving.

You’ll also hear practical guidance on how to build a platform-neutral voice and CCaaS stack that can integrate your CRM, contact center platform, and best-of-breed AI tools, without locking yourself into one vendor as the market changes. 

In this CX Today conversation, Nicole Willing speaks with Keith Wilson, Executive Director of Product Management for Customer Experience at CSG, about why fragmentation isn’t a technology failure, but a coordination problem, and how leading organisations are fixing it without starting over.

From interoperability and real-time decisioning to journey orchestration and AI-assisted collaboration, this is a practical look at how enterprises move from siloed systems to connected, outcome-driven experiences.

What you’ll take away:

• The early warning signs of CX breakdown, from declining engagement to journey abandonment
• Why “rip and replace” transformation strategies often create more complexity, not less
• What true interoperability looks like, and why speed matters as much as integration
• The difference between connected systems and genuinely connected customer experiences
• How orchestration enables incremental change that delivers measurable impact over time
• Why personalisation must operate at the individual level, not in segments
• How AI is reshaping collaboration between CX and IT teams

Who should watch?:

• Chief Customer Officers and Heads of CX tackling fragmented journeys and disengagement
• CIOs and IT leaders responsible for integrating complex CX stacks
• Contact Centre and Operations leaders focused on reducing effort and improving resolution
• Digital and transformation leaders embedding AI into customer experience strategies

If your CX strategy still relies on adding more tools instead of connecting what you already have, this conversation offers a clear, practical path to reducing complexity, improving journeys, and delivering measurable results within months.