AI Agents Are Done Piloting. CCW 2026 Is Proof.

The Gist

AI deployment moves to the business layer. Multiple CCW announcements center on giving non-technical users direct control over building, testing, and shipping AI-powered customer experiences.
Voice AI matures beyond the demo stage. Vendors from Newo.ai to TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs are presenting production-scale voice AI results, including measurable accuracy benchmarks and onboarding time reductions.
Compliance and quality become AI's next frontier. New partnerships from CallMiner and Sanas reflect growing pressure to embed governance, consent, and communication clarity directly into automated contact center workflows.

Customer Contact Week 2026 in Las Vegas is generating a wave of product announcements that reflect where the contact center industry is heading: AI agents moving from pilot to production, non-technical operators taking control of CX design and vendors racing to prove accuracy, compliance and measurable outcomes at enterprise scale.

Here is a slice of what companies announced at this year's event:

Talkdesk Launches Agent Builder to Accelerate AI Deployment

Talkdesk announced Talkdesk Agent Builder, a natural language-driven tool designed to take AI agents from concept to production in hours rather than weeks. The tool enables both business users and technical teams to manage the full lifecycle of customer service AI agents without prompt engineering or complex configuration.

Plain-language creation. Operations teams describe an agent's role, tone, behaviors and edge cases in plain language; Agent Builder translates those inputs into structured logical instructions and guardrails by ingesting existing enterprise assets such as standard operating procedures and policies.
Pre-deployment validation. Before any agent reaches a customer, Agent Builder automatically reviews instructions for consistency, surfaces gaps or ambiguities and recommends specific improvements — a pre-deployment validation step the company calls a zero-prompt approach to development.
Simplified troubleshooting. When an agent underperforms during testing or in live production, Agent Builder diagnoses the issue, recommends fixes, facilitates re-validation and presents the highest-scoring version for human approval, maintaining human-in-the-loop oversight throughout.
Continuous governance. Deployed agents are continuously monitored and governed through the Talkdesk CXA Operations Center, which the company describes as a complete framework for building, testing and overseeing AI workforces at scale.
CCW presence. Talkdesk is showcasing the product at CCW Las Vegas booth 638, where its broader Customer Experience Automation platform is also a finalist for Automation Solution of the Year in the CCW Excellence Awards.

Amazon Web Services Previews Agentic CX Designer and Live Sync in Amazon Connect

Amazon Web Services published a major thought leadership piece at CCW outlining its position on AI-powered customer experience and announcing two new capabilities in Amazon Connect Customer now available in preview: an Agentic CX Designer and Live Sync.

Agentic CX Designer. The tool allows business teams to build end-to-end conversational AI experiences visually, blending agentic reasoning and deterministic steps — such as identity verification and payment processing — without writing code, and to test and iterate within a single environment.
Live Sync. A patented technology that synchronizes a voice conversation with a digital on-screen interface in real time, enabling both the conversation and a customer's screen to move together — something AWS says no competitor currently offers.
Business users as CX architects. AWS frames the shift as putting business users — not IT — in control of CX design: once foundational infrastructure such as API connections and data integrations are built by engineers, the logic of customer experiences can be designed, tested, and shipped by CX operators in the same day.
NLX acquisition accelerates the platform. Amazon Connect Customer's agentic capabilities build on AWS's acquisition of NLX earlier in 2026, which brought nearly a decade of enterprise-scale conversational AI development into the platform.
Saks Fifth Avenue early results. AWS cited the retailer as an early example, noting it reached production in six weeks with a business analyst leading experience design, achieving a sub-1% error rate on read-backs and under two-second response times per conversational turn.

TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs Partner on Enterprise Voice AI Deployment

TELUS Digital and ElevenLabs announced a strategic partnership at CCW making TELUS Digital a preferred implementation partner for ElevenAgents, ElevenLabs' enterprise voice AI platform. The partnership positions TELUS Digital to lead deployment, integration and governance for enterprise clients adopting ElevenAgents at scale.

Partnership structure. Enterprises can contract with ElevenLabs directly and engage TELUS Digital to deploy and operate the technology, with TELUS Digital providing ongoing managed services and operational support post-launch across CRM, CX, and telephony platforms including Genesys, Twilio, Amazon Connect, Zendesk, and Salesforce.
Fuel iX Agent Trainer results. TELUS Digital already uses ElevenLabs internally through its proprietary Fuel iX™ Agent Trainer, a role-play simulation platform that has completed more than 90,000 simulations as of June 2026, reducing agent onboarding time by 20% with early indicators of lower agent turnover.
Proactive onboarding proof-of-concept. A deployment at TELUS Communications sent an ElevenAgents voice agent to proactively contact newly activated home internet customers in their first 90 days; customers who received the proactive welcome call were less than half as likely to cancel service within 30 days compared to the average new internet customer.
Platform scale and compliance. ElevenAgents supports 4.8 million agents handling 1.3 million daily conversations across 80 countries, with SOC 2, HIPAA, and GDPR compliance and EU Data Residency and Zero Retention options available for regulated industries.
CCW workshop. The two companies are co-hosting a hands-on workshop at CCW on June 23 where attendees can configure and deploy a live voice agent using ElevenAgents, targeting telecommunications, financial services, utilities, and retail sectors.

Newo.ai Unveils Zero-Hallucination Architecture With 99.6% Lead Success Score

Newo.ai announced at CCW that its voice AI platform has surpassed a 99.6% Lead Success Score (LSS) for the first time, a benchmark measuring how reliably an AI agent completes a core business task on a live call without losing revenue. The result comes from an analysis of 100,000 calls validated by both AI and human reviewers across the medical orthodontics and restaurant industries.

Zero-Hallucination Architecture. The company's proprietary architecture uses dozens of AI supervisors to continuously monitor and adjust each conversation in real time, keeping responses grounded in a business's approved information rather than allowing the AI to improvise — unlike linear pipeline architectures where errors can reach callers unchecked.
How LSS is calculated. LSS is measured only for sessions where a caller shows clear purchase intent; a session is marked successful when the agent completes the primary workflow directly or uses a compliant fallback that preserves the lead, such as escalating to a human or sending an SMS for self-booking.
Platform scale. The platform is built on third-generation voice-to-voice technology with 0.5–1.4 second latency and operates across 22 industries, 30 countries, and 90 languages, with more than 200 built-in integrations across CRM, PMS and POS systems.
White-label, partner-first model. Newo is designed for CCaaS and CPaaS vendors, BPOs, and contact centers; the company's Voice AI Creator tool can deploy new agents in minutes for simpler environments and within days for complex contact center configurations.
Partner results. Newo partner Sophias reported saving one contact center $1.4 million by eliminating call-routing errors using the platform. Newo is exhibiting at CCW booth 1509.

Alorica and Crescendo Launch AI-Native CX Partnership

Alorica and Crescendo announced a strategic partnership at CCW to bring Crescendo's AI-native customer experience platform to Alorica's enterprise client base, addressing what the companies describe as a critical market gap in operationalizing AI across live voice and chat channels.

Partnership terms. The agreement includes co-development of an AI-native center of excellence within Alorica, co-development of new market offerings for enterprise live-channel CX and a license for Alorica to resell and deploy Crescendo's platform to its enterprise clients.
Human agent access for Crescendo customers. Crescendo customers will gain access to Alorica's global workforce of more than 100,000 agents across 16 countries, enabling enterprises to augment AI interactions with human agents in a unified operating model.
AI-native architecture meets live-channel expertise. Crescendo is described as the only AI-native CX platform designed to orchestrate both AI and human interactions across the full customer journey — a design the companies say complements Alorica's 25-plus years of expertise in voice and chat environments where context, precision, and continuity are essential.
Operating foundation, not an add-on. The partnership is designed to help brands treat AI not as an additional capability but as the foundational operating layer for how CX is planned, handled, and continuously optimized end to end.
CCW presence. Alorica and Crescendo are available at CCW at Alorica's meeting room (Forum 122) and Crescendo's booth (1139).

CCW 2026 Vendor Innovation Highlights

Editor's note: Customer Contact Week 2026 announcements show the contact center industry moving beyond AI pilots and into enterprise-scale deployment. Here's where vendors are investing and how the market is evolving.

Innovation Area	Representative Vendors	Primary Focus	Key Differentiator
Business-Led AI Development	Talkdesk, AWS	AI agent creation and CX design	Enables operations and business teams to build, test and manage AI experiences without relying heavily on developers.
Enterprise Voice AI	TELUS Digital, ElevenLabs, Newo.ai	Production-scale voice automation	Focuses on measurable business outcomes, deployment services and operational reliability rather than pilot programs.
AI Reliability	Newo.ai	Accuracy and hallucination prevention	Introduces outcome-based metrics that tie AI performance directly to revenue-generating customer interactions.
Hybrid Human-AI Operations	Alorica, Crescendo, Centrical	Coordinating AI and human workforces	Creates unified operating models where AI agents and employees work within the same performance framework.
Compliance and Governance	CallMiner, PossibleNOW	Regulatory controls and consent management	Builds compliance requirements directly into automated customer interactions rather than auditing them afterward.
Multilingual Customer Engagement	Sanas	Real-time language and speech translation	Expands global customer support capabilities while preserving natural voice quality and communication clarity.
Operational Intelligence	Nectar	Contact center observability and monitoring	Connects platform performance data directly to customer and agent experience outcomes.
AI Coaching and Performance Management	Centrical	Training, coaching and workforce optimization	Uses AI-powered simulations, coaching and performance insights to improve both human and AI agent effectiveness.
AI Voice Governance	Voices	Branded AI voice management	Addresses voice authenticity, consent, licensing and governance concerns as AI voice adoption accelerates.

CallMiner and PossibleNOW Partner to Embed Compliance in Automated Interactions

CallMiner and PossibleNOW announced a new partnership at CCW to embed compliance guardrails directly into automated customer interactions, targeting enterprises that need to scale AI-driven outreach without increasing regulatory risk.

The compliance gap. According to CallMiner's annual CX Landscape Report, nearly half (49%) of CX and contact center leaders are concerned that AI will expose their company to security or compliance risks — the gap the partnership directly addresses.
How the platforms integrate. CallMiner's intelligent CX automation platform, including its CallMiner OmniAgent virtual agent product, analyzes omnichannel interactions and powers automated decision-making in real time; PossibleNOW's DNCSolution integrates to determine who can be contacted, when, and through which channel before an interaction takes place.
Prevention over remediation. The combined solution is designed to prevent compliance violations before they occur, reduce contact over-suppression that can limit legitimate engagement and eliminate the operational burden of managing consent and do-not-contact requirements manually at scale.
Regulatory stakes. The partnership addresses growing complexity around requirements such as the Telephone Consumer Protection Act (TCPA), where non-compliance risks include regulatory fines, litigation, reputational damage, and potential shutdown of outbound operations.
CCW presence. CallMiner is at CCW booth 526 and PossibleNOW at booth 2105.

Sanas Expands Language Translation to 30 Languages, Opens Platform to Developers

Sanas announced at CCW the expansion of its real-time language translation capability to 30 languages and the opening of its Speech AI platform to developers and small businesses, according to the company's CCW announcement. The moves extend Sanas's reach beyond large enterprise contact centers toward smaller organizations and builders developing real-time speech experiences.

Unified speech AI stack. The platform provides real-time accent translation, language translation, speech enhancement and noise cancellation in a single stack, with all processing designed to preserve the speaker's original voice, tone and emotional delivery rather than replacing it with a synthetic voice.
Enterprise footprint. The platform has crossed 750,000 users globally and operates across more than 100 countries; enterprise customers include Carelon, Cigna, Comcast, Huntington, Robinhood, UnitedHealth Group, Vanguard, and Wyndham.
Opening to developers and SMBs. The expansion represents a strategic shift from Sanas's origins as an enterprise-only solution, aligning with the company's broader positioning as a real-time speech infrastructure layer for any live interaction between humans, machines and customers.
Enterprise-grade security architecture. The platform supports on-device and containerized deployment options with HITRUST i1 certification, enabling data sovereignty and compliance for regulated industries including financial services, healthcare, and telecommunications.
Tomato.ai acquisition. In April, Sanas acquired Tomato.ai, a voice transformation company, strengthening its capabilities in zero-shot, real-time voice transformation for live communications systems.

Infographic highlighting key innovation themes from Customer Contact Week 2026 in Las Vegas. Against a Las Vegas skyline backdrop, the graphic identifies nine major contact center trends: business-led AI development, enterprise voice AI, AI reliability, human-plus-AI workforce models, compliance by design, global customer engagement, operational intelligence, AI coaching and performance management, and AI voice governance. The infographic concludes that future contact centers will be intelligent, compliant, global and powered by both humans and AI. — Customer Contact Week 2026 showcased how contact center innovation is shifting from AI experimentation to operational deployment, with vendors emphasizing governance, reliability, workforce orchestration and enterprise-scale automation.Simpler Media Group

Nectar Releases New Operational Intelligence Capabilities for Genesys Cloud

Nectar Services Corp. announced the availability of its latest platform release at CCW, expanding operational intelligence and observability for Genesys Cloud environments through Nectar DXP R23. The release is designed to help enterprises proactively manage contact center performance, troubleshoot faster and connect platform-level operational data to customer and agent experience outcomes.

Expanded Genesys Cloud visibility. The new capabilities give Genesys Cloud users greater visibility into platform health, queue performance, agent responsiveness and capacity utilization, directly connecting operational platform events to the customer and agent experiences they affect.
Bridging experience and platform data. Nectar's approach connects what it describes as a persistent gap between experience data and platform visibility, enabling organizations to understand how infrastructure, routing, and platform behavior influence individual conversations.
MCP framework advances to beta. In addition to the operational intelligence enhancements, Nectar has moved its Model Context Protocol (MCP) Server framework from alpha to beta, a milestone in the company's initiative to enable AI-driven access to communications observability and operational intelligence data.
Availability and CCW presence. Nectar DXP R23 is available immediately to customers worldwide. Nectar is exhibiting at CCW booth 826.

Centrical Extends Performance Intelligence OS With Coaching Capabilities and MCP Integration

Centrical announced at CCW the general availability of AI Role-Play Simulations and a set of new coaching capabilities extending its Performance Intelligence OS, per the company's CCW announcement. The release positions Centrical's platform as a unified coaching and performance system for both human employees and AI agents on the hybrid frontline.

Closing the action gap. AI-Guided Coaching and Real-Time Signals now join AI Role-Play Simulations as a connected system: rather than leaving performance data isolated across workforce management, quality, conversation intelligence, CRM and learning tools, the platform is designed to turn signals into specific guided actions for employees and managers.
Early performance results. Customers already using Centrical's coaching capabilities, including the AI Assistant for managers, have seen performance improvements of up to 10% — cited as early validation of the connected coaching loop.
MCP servers for Claude, ChatGPT and beyond. Three new Model Context Protocol servers connect the Centrical platform directly to Claude, ChatGPT and any MCP-aware AI assistant, enabling employees, administrators and analysts to query Centrical data and take action from within their AI tool of choice without switching platforms.
Agent-to-agent communication. MCP also enables Centrical's AI agents to interact directly with external AI agents across platforms — an architecture the company says positions performance intelligence as a layer that functions alongside, rather than in isolation from, other AI systems.
Series D funding context. The announcement builds on Centrical's $39 million Series D closed June 2, led by Leeds Illuminate and Kingfisher Investment, funding expansion of AI tools to manage frontline performance across both human and AI workers. Centrical is at CCW booth 713.

Voices Launches Purpose-Built AI Voice Offering for Customer Service Platforms

Voices announced Voices for Customer Experience at CCW, a purpose-built offering targeting customer service automation platforms that need Branded AI Voices designed for live support interactions rather than demos. The launch positions Voices as a governance and talent layer for contact center platforms that deploy AI voice at enterprise scale.

The voice quality gap. According to Voices' Amplified 2026 report, 79% of voice AI decision-makers say inauthentic AI voices negatively impact brand perception, and 79% say it is important that AI voices come from real, attributed voice talent — a credibility problem that generic off-the-shelf voices, trained for broad use rather than specific customer service scenarios, consistently fail to solve.
VoiceMatch talent sourcing. Using the company's proprietary VoiceMatch™ algorithm — which evaluates talent across 20 variables including language, voice style, and use case experience — Voices identifies professional voice talent matched to a platform's specific requirements with an average hire time of under 24 hours.
Purpose-built recording and cloning. Every recording session is captured in Voices' web-based Recording Studio using custom scripts that ensure the cloned voice accurately pronounces brand-specific terminology and performs naturally across use cases; as a platform's product evolves, Voices supports ongoing voice refinement without requiring a full restart.
Full voice governance built in. Voices manages talent consent, compensation, usage rights, exclusivity provisions, and licensing controls — including protections that ensure platforms retain access to their selected talent for the duration of the agreement, addressing a recurring risk in enterprise voice deployments where third-party catalog voices can be sunsetted without warning.
Global talent network. The offering draws on Voices' network spanning 185-plus countries and 110-plus languages, enabling customer service automation platforms to build out multilingual Branded AI Voice catalogs for multinational enterprise clients without sourcing talent independently.

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