News Analysis
The Gist
- AI drives CCaaS growth despite complexity. Vendors with strong AI portfolios saw higher price-per-seat and consumption-based revenue in 2024, fueling expansion.
- NiCE, Genesys and Amazon Connect lead market share. Seat and revenue projections through 2029 show a continued shift toward AI-enhanced, cloud-based infrastructure.
- CCaaS becomes strategic infrastructure partner. Vendors are no longer just “pipes” — many serve as core integrators and AI innovation engines for contact centers.
2025 Market Report Highlights Strategic Shift in Contact Center Technology
Research and Markets has released its 2025 Contact Center as a Service Worldwide Market Share Report on July 10, offering a detailed look at the vendors driving transformation in this high-growth space. Based on 2024 performance, the report identifies NiCE, Genesys and Amazon Connect as the global leaders by seat count, with AI innovation fueling broader industry momentum.
The 200-page report assesses seat volume, revenue, adoption trends and five-year projections across 200+ vendors in the multi-tenant CCaaS market. It excludes hosted and single-tenant SaaS offerings to focus solely on scalable cloud-native platforms. Vendors like UJET, Dialpad and Vonage are also analyzed alongside platform giants including Salesforce and Google.
Table of Contents
- AI Applications Become Growth Engine for Contact Centers
- Divergent Expectations Among CCaaS Buyers
- Why AI Alone Isn’t Enough for Contact Centers
- Bridging AI Promise With Agent Success
- Top Vendors by Seat Count
- Related CMSWire Coverage
- Who Should Watch This Market
- What’s Next for CCaaS in the Age of AI?
- Core Questions About the 2025 CCaaS Market
AI Applications Become Growth Engine for Contact Centers
AI is no longer just a buzzword in CCaaS — it’s the backbone of innovation. According to the report, cloud-native contact centers are rapidly integrating AI capabilities such as transcription, next-best-action (NBA), post-interaction summarization and agent quality monitoring (AQM). This not only enhances customer service outcomes but enables vendors to increase revenue per seat or transition to usage-based pricing.
As a result, AI-rich platforms are becoming the de facto standard, especially among enterprises seeking scalable CX modernization. Vendors that expanded their portfolios with embedded AI apps in recent years are now capturing higher-margin business and driving seat growth.
Related Article: Can Contact Centers Move From Cost Centers to Experience Hubs?
Divergent Expectations Among CCaaS Buyers
The report outlines an important shift in how buyers view their CCaaS vendors. While some still see them as channel enablers for voice and digital flow, others expect full-service orchestration — from systems integration to AI-led journey management. The line between CCaaS platform, systems integrator and AI provider continues to blur, reflecting trends seen in feedback-led CX platforms and intelligent orchestration tools.
Why AI Alone Isn’t Enough for Contact Centers
Leadership, trust and adoption are the real differentiators
However, the promise of AI in contact centers has to come with strong leadership and integration models, as we've learned recently. The best AI in the world won’t move the needle if agents don’t trust it — or worse, fear it.
As discussed in recent reporting on agent sentiment, many frontline teams are less concerned with AI itself than with how it’s rolled out. Poor communication, unclear benefits and lack of involvement in the process all lead to resistance, undercutting the very gains AI promises to deliver.
Success also hinges on cultural buy-in and usability. According to insights from our exploration of the $50B conversational AI market, agents are more likely to adopt AI tools that actually make their work easier — not just monitor or micromanage it. Effective implementation requires not just technical integration, but a leadership approach that centers agents as collaborators in the AI transition.
In the end, the CCaaS vendors that rise to the top won’t just be those with the most advanced algorithms — they’ll be the ones who help organizations bring those tools to life through trust, clarity and strategic change management.
Bridging AI Promise With Agent Success
This table highlights the most promising applications of AI in contact centers alongside the leadership actions needed to ensure those innovations are adopted, trusted and effective for frontline agents.
| AI Capability | Value for the Contact Center | Leadership Requirement |
|---|---|---|
| Real-time agent guidance | Reduces handle time and improves first contact resolution | Train agents on use cases, provide context and avoid “coaching overload” |
| Post-interaction summarization | Frees agents from manual note-taking, enabling faster wrap-up | Reassure agents it’s a tool, not a performance monitor; involve them in pilot testing |
| Sentiment and emotion detection | Supports real-time escalations and improves supervisor visibility | Clarify how data will be used and ensure transparency to build trust |
| Next-best-action (NBA) recommendations | Helps agents personalize experiences and resolve issues efficiently | Integrate NBA into workflows clearly; get frontline feedback on what works |
| AI-enabled quality monitoring | Streamlines QA and reduces human reviewer load | Balance automation with human QA; explain scoring logic to avoid agent pushback |
| Conversational AI and virtual agents | Handles repetitive tasks and deflects low-complexity volume | Position AI as a partner, not a threat; invest in reskilling for more complex work |
Top Vendors by Seat Count
Based on 2024 seat numbers in Research and Markets' report, the top vendors ranked are:
Additional vendors analyzed include UJET, Enghouse, Puzzel, Vonage, Intermedia, Salesforce, Google, Call Center Studio and Diabolocom. The “Other” category consolidates data from more than 160 additional providers.
It’s important to note that this list reflects the findings of one market research firm. The vendors highlighted in the Research and Markets report are based on seat volume as of December 2024 and focus exclusively on multi-tenant CCaaS offerings. It’s not intended to be an exhaustive list of all viable CCaaS providers.
Other respected industry analyses offer different lenses. For example, Gartner’s 2024 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service evaluates vendors based on execution and vision, grouping them into categories such as Leaders, Challengers, Visionaries and Niche Players. Gartner emphasizes product completeness, innovation, global reach and ability to serve both voice and digital customer channels.
When evaluating CCaaS platforms, CX leaders should consider both quantitative metrics like seats and revenue, and qualitative indicators like customer experience, roadmap agility and platform openness — especially as generative AI and automation increasingly shape platform value.
Vendors Evaluated in Gartner’s 2024 Magic Quadrant for CCaaS
Below are the vendors evaluated in Gartner’s 2024 Magic Quadrant for Contact Center as a Service, with a brief summary of their assessed strengths or market positioning:
- Amazon Web Services (Amazon Connect): A Leader known for scalability, developer customization and native AI integration, but with reporting and pricing complexity cautions.
- Genesys: A Leader offering strong support for complex global deployments and migration, with high marks for ease of use, though some gaps in WFM and analytics remain.
- NiCE (CXone): A Leader praised for global scale, AI and WEM leadership, and ease of use, with some noted challenges in reporting depth and midsize support responsiveness.
- Five9: A Leader lauded for service quality, migration support and U.S. market strength, but with a more limited international footprint and admin/reporting concerns.
- Talkdesk: A Visionary offering vertical market solutions and strong ease of use, yet facing support and reporting consistency issues, particularly outside North America and Europe.
- Cisco (Webex Contact Center): A Challenger benefiting from UCaaS integration and global support, though hindered by limited third-party integrations and SLA flexibility.
- 8x8: A Niche Player positioned well for midmarket customers with strong Teams integration, but not ideal for complex enterprise deployments due to reporting and partner variability.
- Content Guru: A Niche Player focused on large, complex European deployments, recognized for reliability but facing pricing and geographic support limitations.
- Vonage: A Niche Player suited for midmarket firms with strong Salesforce integration, though constrained by limited multilingual support and system reporting concerns.
Gartner’s evaluation considers both “ability to execute” and “completeness of vision,” offering another strategic lens for leaders selecting CCaaS partners aligned with their scale, geography, and innovation needs.
CCaaS Market Performance at a Glance
This snapshot summarizes the key performance metrics from the 2025 Contact Center as a Service Worldwide Market Share Report, highlighting the role of AI vendor rankings and global projections.
| Metric | Details |
|---|---|
| Seats Tracked | 200+ vendors, multi-tenant CCaaS only, as of December 31, 2024 |
| Top Vendors by Seat Volume | NiCE, Genesys, Amazon Connect, Five9, Content Guru |
| Primary Growth Driver | AI capabilities (e.g., real-time guidance, summarization, sentiment analysis) |
| Forecast Window | 2025–2029 seat adoption rate and total addressable market (TAM) |
| Regional Analysis | Revenue breakdown by geography and category (WEM, AI, professional services) |
Related CMSWire Coverage
- Your Contact Center Agents Don’t Fear AI — They Fear Your Leadership
- Will Your Agents Buy In to the $50B Conversational AI Market?
- Feedback Loops — Not Dashboards — Drive Real CX Insights
Who Should Watch This Market
- Contact center and CX technology decision-makers
- Chief digital officers and IT strategists
- Customer experience and transformation leaders
- Investors and analysts covering enterprise software
- Operations leaders focused on AI and automation ROI
What’s Next for CCaaS in the Age of AI?
From Infrastructure to Intelligence
The contact center has long been viewed as a cost center — something to optimize, route, and contain. But as AI becomes embedded in every layer of customer operations, Contact Center as a Service is evolving into the digital nerve center for orchestrating customer journeys, capturing intent and delivering real-time intelligence.
Vendors leading the market aren’t just selling seats — they’re selling smarter outcomes. AI-powered CCaaS platforms now support everything from real-time guidance and summarization to emotional analytics and next-best-action. These intelligent systems underpin consumption-based pricing models and cloud-first infrastructure.
The platforms gaining share are those that surface actionable insights and empower agents to deliver personalized care. As explored in our latest report on CCaaS and analytics, the real advantage lies in how these tools are applied by agents — not just their features. They must enable agents, especially those who may be short-staffed.
Rakesh Tailor, VP of product management at Genesys, told CMSWire, "When there aren’t enough agents to meet demand, teams are stretched thin ... . This constant pressure can drive agent stress and burnout, while customers are left waiting—and often vent their frustration on the very people trying to help them."
Barry Cooper, president of NICE’s CX division, echoed that call to action from the platform side: "The mandate from C-suite leaders is clear: they want to fully automate customer service, and they are looking for a partner with proven AI at scale to take them there."
Core Questions About the 2025 CCaaS Market
Editor's note: Key questions surrounding the evolving CCaaS market and how AI, pricing models and vendor dynamics are shaping customer experience infrastructure.
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CCaaS buyers increasingly view vendors as strategic partners who integrate systems and deliver AI capabilities — not just platforms for managing call flows.
Watch for growth in usage-based pricing, demand for AI-powered self-service and the blurring lines between CCaaS, WEM and conversational intelligence platforms.
AI is the key driver — vendors that offer transcription, real-time agent guidance, summarization and other AI tools are outperforming those that don't. These tools not only improve service but enable higher per-seat revenue or usage-based pricing.
NICE, Genesys and Amazon Connect lead the market by number of seats, with Five9, Content Guru and RingCentral also ranked among the top 10.
