Insider Report April 2026

Curated Enterprise Communications News and Insights from April 2026

Featured

Economic signals are flashing red across the board. Fuel costs are spiking, inflation has resurfaced, and ordinary consumers are tightening their belts. Despite this grim backdrop, the stock market is operating in a different dimension. The S&P 500 surged nearly 30 percent this past year, hitting record peaks even as global stability faltered. While the world braces for impact, Wall Street is throwing a party, seemingly detached from the struggles of the average comms professional.

The engine behind this disconnect is pure corporate profitability. Investors aren't tracking the cost of living; they are tracking the bottom line, and that bottom line is going up for many companies. Alphabet and Nvidia are generating astronomical returns, with profit margins reaching levels difficult to fathom. Even Meta is seeing explosive growth, and the broader market is riding the wave of AI-driven efficiency. 

Paradoxically, inflation has helped some of these firms by providing cover for aggressive pricing, while the massive infrastructure required for the AI era has created a gold mine for companies building chips and servers.

However, this isn't a universal victory. The market remains ruthless toward any firm that fails to meet expectations or shows vulnerability to AI disruption. Traditional software companies, in particular, are facing intense scrutiny as investors worry their business models might be obsolete in this new landscape.

The UCaaS sector is mostly on the sidelines. The world can’t decide if the AI-enhanced workflows are a lucrative AI play or a vulnerable SaaS play. CX is more in the crosshairs. We know it is an AI play, but we can’t figure out how to monetize it. The coming months will be a moment of truth, determining whether sky-high AI valuations are based on tangible future growth or speculative fever. The cost of this AI revolution hinges entirely on the hope that AI becomes better and more useful (than it is now). 

General News

#ZoomPerspectives: My main takeaway from Zoom Perspectives is that the company is all in on disrupting the future of work. It is strange how the #FutureofWork has been a popular theme for decades, yet now, when everything is truly changing, the term has mostly disappeared. Although I never figured out how to operate the lights in my posh hotel room at the Zoom event, I did come to appreciate “Conversation to Completion.” That’s Zoom’s new tagline. 

All work is a series of processes. In factories, the inputs are materials and the outputs are finished goods. Knowledge work is more conceptual. The outputs are usually intangible, so “completion” is a reasonable term. But what are the inputs to knowledge work? 

Zoom has “stated” the obvious: conversations. We all know conversations are important, but asserting them as workflow inputs is a clever observation, four years into generative AI. Just because conversations have generally been ephemeral, it doesn’t mean they have to be. In fact, they can be inputs to knowledge work. 

With AI, we can capture our conversations (meetings, calls, chats, even in-person verbal communication). Many UCaaS providers are doing so, and Zoom has gone so far as to create a smartphone application to capture conversations in the wild. Capturing actual conversations is how the contact center got promoted from CRM’s assistant to source of truth. If we can capture the conversation, we can use it as an ingredient in or even the genesis of modern work processes. 

For Zoom, conversations can be the catalyst of its system of action. The Workplace suite includes the Zoom AI Companion, powered by Zoom’s federated AI architecture, and accessed through its Workplace applications and a direct chat interface. Zoom is using conversations, apps, and external connectors to create a memory layer that leverages organizational knowledge for AI-assisted workflows. We have seen how technology enables asymmetric warfare in the Middle East; Zoom is betting on similar results on the commercial battlefield. 

Zoom is all in on architecting an AI-powered future of work. It is steadily improving its AI capabilities and bringing them to market in intuitive and affordable ways. It has expanded its portfolio, which now includes what is likely the newest AI-native CCaaS. All of its apps have been bolstered by Zoom AI Companion, and these apps increasingly blur workflows. It is also expanding the portfolio with acquisitions for new skills and people. Executing its vision requires significant resources (people, cash, acquisitions, etc.) and imagination. The company is pushing numerous frontiers at a furious pace.

#M365Con26: I’d never heard of the M365 Community Conference before, but it’s emerging as the venue for M365 stakeholders. I attended this conference primarily to get an update on Teams. Initially, the event was a SharePoint gathering. Its growth attracted Microsoft to sponsor it, leading to a rebrand with an M365 theme. Of course, M365 touches many elements, and content sessions included Dataverse, Entra ID, Purview, Places, and Sentinel. 

Teams is transforming into a central hub for an AI-powered workforce (and workplace). WorkIQ is a foundational data layer that synthesizes data from SharePoint, emails, chats, calendars, and more to understand the nature of one’s work. In other words, SharePoint has the data, but WorkIQ has the nuance. Microsoft, for example, uses WorkIQ to create and leverage what it calls tribal knowledge, which it discovers by building a work chart of how people collaborate. This is why Anthropic’s Cowork may perform better when purchased from Microsoft. Suddenly, the magic of M365 is the apps, AI, and your data. 

Teams is the middle layer, between personal Copilots and WorkIQ, where humans and AI agents collaborate. Teams is also expanding its physical awareness (via devices and location awareness); expect more integration with Places. Teams has agents too: for example, Copilot call delegation and an expanded Interpreter. Express Enroll (voice and face) is lowering the barrier to AI adoption. Teams is also seeing improved capabilities for events. 

This perspective was refreshing because Teams has become the proverbial elephant in Microsoft’s portfolio. Microsoft hosts four flagship conferences per year: Build, Ignite, Inspire, and Envision — none of which give Teams the time of day. Antitrust chatter likely also contributed to a Teams gag rule. 

But Teams is central to Microsoft’s vision of an AI-enhanced future. It was prominent in the opening keynote. Teams also had a separate keynote, and it was well represented in breakout sessions. The online agenda had a “filter by product” option, and selecting “Microsoft Teams” narrowed the content sessions to 75! The expo hall was filled with the usual third parties that improve Teams, including MTR devices, PSTN partners, and contact center solutions. 

Déjà Vu: Salesforce and its subsidiary Slack have filed a lawsuit against Microsoft in London’s High Court, alleging anticompetitive practices regarding tying Teams to the broader Office ecosystem. The claim asserts that Microsoft’s bundling restricts customer choice and limits competition. While that is certainly true, the legal issues are much more complex. The lawsuit follows the September 2025 European Commission settlement in which Microsoft agreed to unbundle Teams and offer reduced-price versions of Office 365/Microsoft 365 without the communication app.

Clearly, Salesforce was not satisfied with the 2025 EU settlement, which resulted from the 2025 complaint filed by Slack before Salesforce acquired Slack. 

Salesforce knows that Europe is generally frustrated with America (NATO, tariffs, Ukraine, etc.). UK regulators recently certified mass lawsuits against Microsoft. The UK is a new venue for complaints as it is not part of the EU. Salesforce is likely seeking financial damages and/or more aggressive interop mandates. 

EU Battery Mandate: The European Union has finalized the timeline for Regulation 2023/1542, which requires all smartphones, tablets, and cordless handsets sold in Europe to have user-replaceable batteries by February 18, 2027. Under the mandate, batteries must be removable without the need for specialist tools, heat, or solvents, and manufacturers must maintain spare-part availability for up to 10 years. The regulation also bans “parts-pairing” software that prevents the use of third-party batteries.

This is great news. The battery is usually the main driver of replacement on modern smartphones. Pre-iPhone, separate batteries and battery chargers were common peripherals. The ridiculous big portable batteries to charge small internal batteries counter mobility. This will shift mindsets from replace to repair. Hardware vendors will be forced to choose between thickening their devices or investing heavily in battery chemistry to meet the 1,000-cycle exemption. 

Zoom’s Workplace 2.0: Zoom introduced Workplace 2.0, featuring a unified interface that eliminates the historical separation between Phone, Meetings, and Team Chat tabs. The redesign centers on a universal AI-first header and a dedicated AI Companion tab, which serves as a context-aware side panel. Communication is a feature of the work being performed. The change moved and locked the familiar navigation icons from the top to the side of the screen.

RIP MS Surface Hub: Microsoft has ended production of the Surface Hub line. It will continue to support existing Hub 3 units through 2030. It’s possible that Surface was more about experimentation and pushing the boundaries than it ever was a product. Each of the Surface models had some boundary-pushing capabilities. It is no surprise that the vast majority of Teams room devices come from third-party vendors. Many of the Surface engineers are now working on MDEP. 

RIP Cisco Desk Mini: Cisco has announced the end of sale and end of life for the Desk Mini, with orders ending in July 2026 and support continuing into 2031. The product was always cuter than necessary. The prosumer space is tricky. The Facebook Portal disappeared, too.

Format Wars: Coke or Pepsi? Less filling or tastes great? The polarized rivalries of past decades may have a new contender: horizontal or vertical. SMPTE (Society of Motion Picture and Television Engineers) recently highlighted what many traditionalists have argued for years: that human vision is naturally horizontal, that film and television have historically been framed horizontally, and that important visual information is often sacrificed when video is reformatted vertically. Media purists, of whom Danto is clearly one, have increasingly opposed social media creators and influencers who favor the easier vertical format because it fills more of a smartphone screen when held in the portrait position most users naturally choose. But technology may be turning this from a holy war into a workflow issue, as AWS, working with Elemental Inference, CloudFront, and Tiledmedia, has shown how a single live video source can be turned into synchronized horizontal and vertical viewing experiences in near real time, with both framings delivered from the same stream. The argument has produced no shortage of videos and commentary from both sides, turning aspect ratio into an unexpectedly spirited modern debate. The battle is far from settled, but perhaps the real winner will be the system that lets creators shoot once, frame twice, and stop pretending that every screen deserves the same compromise. 

Cisco Launches Sov Infrastructure Portfolio: Cisco introduced its Sovereign Critical Infrastructure (SCI) portfolio, specifically for the EMEA region. This initiative allows organizations to deploy Cisco’s core networking, security, and Webex collaboration tools in air-gapped or on-premises environments, ensuring data remains entirely within local jurisdictions. The launch includes the expansion of Critical National Services Centers (CNSCs) in the UK, France, Spain, and Italy, staffed by local personnel to meet strict sovereignty requirements. 

Data sovereignty is the new battleground for cloud providers in Europe. An air-gapped version of Webex may give Cisco an advantage against US-based competitors that rely on shared public cloud architectures. This will likely appeal to the public sector and regulated industries that are under increasing pressure to repatriate critical operations from foreign providers.

AI News

Mythos: No More Secrets: Anthropic’s new AI model, Mythos, represents a significant leap in AI-assisted hacking, moving beyond simple speed and scale to genuine sophistication. It has opted to release Mythos Preview to a select number of large computing companies. Anthropic will not release Mythos Preview to the public until more robust safeguards are created. 

While previous models like Claude Opus 4.6 were less capable, Mythos Preview has reportedly found thousands of previously undetected software bugs, including a nearly 30-year-old vulnerability in a secure operating system. Holy increment, Batman! Until now, AI-assisted hacking was about scale, not ingenuity. The model’s exact capabilities and exploitability are difficult to assess at this time. Anthropic’s opaque announcement allows it to claim advanced development while appearing responsible. It’s likely, though, that other major AI firms, such as Google DeepMind and AI firms in China, are developing similar capabilities. 

OpenAI Halts Stargate UK: OpenAI has halted development of Stargate UK, its planned multibillion-dollar data center in North Tyneside, citing prohibitive energy costs and regulatory uncertainty. This move follows the shutdown of its Sora video application. OpenAI also scaled back a 600 MW expansion at its Abilene, Texas, facility to refocus resources on core enterprise tools. The company recently completed a record $122B fundraising round, valuing it at $852B. 

The data center gold rush is hitting a physical and political wall. The buildout is being blocked locally by 12 states, over 50 local governments, and increasing geopolitical instability affecting global energy markets. Simultaneously, safety concerns increased after the Anthropic-Pentagon standoff. 

Why Token AI Prices May Increase in 2026: In a sharp departure from the historical trend of declining tech costs, 2026 may see higher token prices for AI. It’s basic supply and demand. For example, Anthropic grew its revenue 30x in 15 months. Demand is growing faster than capacity is being built, and shortages are driving price increases. For years, the market operated on the assumption that competition would drive token prices toward zero, but supply and demand may prove otherwise. 

MS Accenture: Microsoft and Accenture announced that Accenture is rolling out Microsoft 365 Copilot across its workforce to ~743,000 employees. This marks the largest Microsoft 365 Copilot deployment to date. Copilot is now being integrated directly into how work gets done across the organization, with sustained adoption at global scale.

Meetings and AV 

David Danto is the primary author of this section. 

InfoComm 2026: Preparation is well underway for the AV and Collaboration industry’s annual US get-together in June. We have received briefings about multiple new solutions being announced, as well as coordination around the showcase that will take place in Las Vegas. So far, we can report that platform interoperability will be a hot topic, with new solutions being offered. Displays, however, will not be, as a number of industry display manufacturers have decided not to attend this year. Keynotes will be presented by Ilya Bukshteyn of Microsoft and Espen Løberg from Cisco. David Danto will be there covering our “Pick Hitz” and also presenting on how to write RFPs that protect user organizations from firms that engage in workforce reductions that compromise support quality and future value. 

NAB 2026: The NAB conference showed a media industry being rebuilt around convergence rather than traditional broadcast categories. The biggest themes were the continued move from SDI to IP, software-defined and cloud-connected workflows, creator and enterprise media tools becoming part of the professional production conversation, broader attention to audio, and more practical uses of AI for clipping, reframing, search, metadata, automation, and content repurposing. NAB once felt disjointed, but in 2026, that breadth looked more like an accurate reflection of the market: broadcasters, streamers, sports organizations, enterprises, creators, cloud providers, and workflow companies are now solving increasingly similar problems. The early takeaway is that NAB now looks less like a traditional broadcast-only trade show and more like an honest snapshot of where media production is headed – increasingly aimed at content creators as well as TV broadcasters. The full research report is available here. Highlights include: 

• Vizrt created a broadcast-style graphics system that can be used inside Zoom to make enterprise meetings look more polished, branded, and easier to follow. The image to the right is an example of the lower-third title, but timers, tickers, logos, and more can also be used with the feature. It is rare nowadays that we can report on a meeting platform feature that exists on only one of the four major platforms, and frankly, Zoom should be boasting loudly about this differentiator.
• Bolin introduced new PTZ cameras that can support multiple outputs and multiple framings from a single camera, including simultaneous wide and close-up views.
• AWS, working with Elemental Inference, CloudFront, and Tiledmedia, showed how one live video source can be turned into synchronized horizontal and vertical viewing experiences in near real time.
• PlexusAV highlighted IPMX-based AV-over-IP products that point toward more open, interoperable infrastructure instead of vendor-locked systems.

Teams: Microsoft added two useful updates to Teams meetings: annotations in a single shared application window and expanded language support for Audio Recap. The annotation update lets participants mark up only the shared app window instead of exposing the full desktop, which should be useful for training, reviews, and customer-facing presentations where privacy matters. Audio Recap now supports more languages, making AI-generated meeting summaries more useful for global teams that want to catch up by listening instead of reading. Microsoft also added public preview support for consecutive interpretation in the Teams Interpreter agent, creating a turn-based translation flow for meetings with two spoken languages. These are not headline-grabbing changes, but they show Microsoft continuing to sand down the everyday friction points in Teams meetings. 

MTR on Android: Microsoft added three notable capabilities to Teams Rooms on Android in its April 2026 update: digital signage for front-of-room displays, ad-hoc room reservation from the device, and live transcription directly from Android room systems. The signage feature helps rooms stay useful between meetings by letting admins push announcements, dashboards, or other web-based content across rooms, including native support for Appspace and XOGO. The reservation and transcription updates make Android-based rooms more practical for spontaneous use and more aligned with the meeting experience users expect from larger room systems. This is another sign that Microsoft is treating Teams Rooms on Android less like a lower-cost endpoint and more like a full workspace platform. 

Zoom Updates: In addition to the Vizrt graphics in meetings noted above, Zoom’s My Notes feature is another sign that AI note-taking is moving beyond a vendor’s own meeting platform. Zoom says My Notes can support Zoom Meetings, third-party meetings, and in-person discussions when transcription is enabled and local audio is available. Google made a similar move at Cloud Next by extending Gemini note-taking beyond Google Meet to in-person meetings and meetings held on Zoom and Microsoft Teams. The new battleground for UC AI is becoming clear: whoever captures the meeting notes may capture the workflow, even when the meeting itself happens somewhere else. The latest software version (7.0.2) brings these features and permanently moves the toolbar with icons from the top of the Zoom workplace screen to the left side.

Zoom also added several AI, media, and sharing features aimed at making meetings more flexible. Realistic and Stylized custom avatars create a digital version of a user that can mimic movement in meetings, while Voice Translator adds live spoken translation in supported languages. Zoom also added individual browser tab sharing for Chrome and Edge, custom AI avatars for Clips, and Zoom Enhanced Media, a paid add-on for higher-bitrate, higher-frame-rate, and 4K-oriented meeting and Zoom Room experiences. For Webinars and Events, new simulive tools allow queued intro, main, and outro videos, scheduled polls and resources, and deeper analytics around topics of interest, benchmarks, and company-level engagement.

Also, Zoom and Tools for Humanity introduced World ID verification inside Zoom, using Zoom Apps and Zoom Realtime Media Streams (RTMS) to show participant verification status directly within a meeting. The announcement highlights Zoom’s effort to make trust and identity part of the live meeting experience, not a separate workflow. The underlying design emphasizes controlled media access, explicit participant consent, and in-meeting app visibility. It is an interesting ecosystem move for Zoom, though identity verification in meetings will need to prove it solves a real user problem without adding friction or unease.

Google: Google used Cloud Next 2026 to expand the AI note-taking capabilities mentioned above, positioning Gemini as a broader conversation intelligence layer across Workspace rather than just a feature inside Google Meet. The related updates to Drive Projects and Smart Canvas point to a tighter connection between conversations, documents, files, spreadsheets, and follow-up work. This also increases competitive pressure on standalone AI meeting-assistant tools such as Otter.ai and Fireflies.ai, especially when similar capabilities are bundled into existing productivity suites. The opportunity is clear, but IT and legal teams will still need to manage consent, privacy, accuracy, multilingual limitations, and governance before treating ambient meeting intelligence as a default workflow. 

Neat Updates Pulse: Neat has added eight new features to Neat Pulse, centered on stronger remote room management, better monitoring, and more control over devices at scale. The update includes features such as remote device actions, bulk operations, improved alerting and troubleshooting tools, and broader visibility into room and device status, all aimed at making life easier for IT teams managing fleets of Neat systems. In practical terms, this is less about flashy new meeting experiences and more about Neat filling in the operational gaps that matter once a company has moved from a handful of rooms to a serious installed base. This is a smart move, because management platforms are becoming a bigger competitive differentiator, and Neat is quietly strengthening one of the areas enterprise buyers increasingly care about.

More ClickShare Bundles: Barco announced that its ClickShare Hub has been certified for Microsoft Teams when bundled with the Logitech MeetUp 2. This is not Barco’s first ClickShare Hub bundle, but the MeetUp 2 is arguably its strongest camera pairing to date, making the package a more serious contender for multiplatform Teams Rooms deployments. The combination gives users a native Microsoft Teams Rooms experience while preserving BYOD compatibility with Zoom, Google Meet, Webex and other platforms. For small and medium-sized rooms, this bundle strengthens Barco’s “best of both worlds” story: Microsoft-certified room simplicity plus high-quality flexibility for everything else. 

ADI Name Change: Resideo told customers that, effective June 1, 2026, its U.S. operating legal entity will change from Resideo LLC to ADI Global LLC as part of the planned separation of ADI Global Distribution into a standalone public company. The company says the change is administrative only and will have no impact on tax ID, banking, products, services, support, contacts, or existing purchase orders, though invoices and packing slips issued on or after that date will carry the new name. Customers are being asked to update their systems to reflect ADI Global LLC beginning June 1. The broader significance is that ADI is moving from separation plans to tangible operational steps, which makes the spinout look increasingly real rather than theoretical.

CX 

Connect This: Amazon Connect got promoted from contact center to a suite of four AI business applications: Connect Decisions for supply chain, Connect Talent for autonomous hiring, Connect Health for healthcare administration, and Connect Customer (the old Connect) for AI-first customer experience and contact center operations. A central component of the news is the Amazon Quick desktop AI assistant, designed to connect various enterprise systems and data to execute autonomous workflows. AWS also announced an expanded partnership with OpenAI and Amazon Bedrock Managed Agents.

Within the contact center, Connect Customer introduces advanced configuration capabilities that allow business teams to design and deploy sophisticated conversational AI experiences without requiring deep technical expertise or proprietary professional services. Organizations can build complex workflows, such as identity verification and payment processing. These contact center agents are designed to proactively assist both customers and human representatives.

Dynamics 365 Agentic CX: Microsoft announced an expansion of its agentic CX capabilities across the Dynamics 365 portfolio and Copilot Studio. The changes mark a definitive pivot from CRM to a full-scale CCaaS. The update introduces three specialized agents: the Customer Assist Agent for high-volume automation, the Quality Assurance Agent for continuous compliance monitoring, and the Service Operations Agent for conversational backend management. Copilot effectively becomes Pilot, capable of managing the entire customer lifecycle without human intervention.

Starlink CC Hires Aliens: Starlink is rumored to have shuttered its human call centers in favor of Grok Voice Think Fast 1.0, a self-contained autonomous agent system from xAI. This call-center-in-a-virtual-box handles 25 languages and executes 28 different backend tools to process hardware troubleshooting, replacement orders, and service credits. Early internal data released by the company claims a 70% resolution rate for support calls and a 20% sales conversion rate for inbound inquiries. 

While CCaaS leaders are cautiously adding AI assistants to help human agents, xAI DOGEd the human agent entirely. The system is designed to plug directly into enterprise terrestrial phone lines, positioning itself as an autonomous alternative to CCaaS and headsets. The claim of a 70% autonomous resolution rate suggests either that specialized agentic AI has eliminated the need for human agents or that the CEO is exaggerating. There is a high probability that Starlink’s claims are true or will be true in some unspecified future. The big question for now is what to do with the other 30% of inquiries. Doh!

Salesforce Lost Its Head: Salesforce is effectively admitting that its legacy UI transformed from an asset to a liability. Its series of pivots now includes a headless model to appease the AI gods. A headless Salesforce strips the platform of its traditional browser UI, and instead exposes its stale data via APIs, an MCP tool, or CLI commands. 

Salesforce is attempting to remain relevant by decomposing. It’s actually a reasonable idea, except that its goal is most likely to preserve clients and revenue, and therein lies the rub. The launch is conspicuously silent on pricing models, SLAs, and the cost of the Flex Credits required to feed the cash cow. Salesforce knows CRM is plummeting toward obsolescence. It also knows it will take its customers 20 years to catch on. Meanwhile, it will ask customers to continue paying premium arms and legs for a database with an API. A headless Salesforce is #Brainless.

RingCentral Expands Messaging: RingCentral announced RCS with Branded Messaging. The company also expanded its AIR to support cross-channel automations across voice and shared SMS inboxes. AIR can interpret intent and respond to inquiries autonomously. RingCentral introduced the Customer Engagement Bundle (CEB) and Operator Connect for Microsoft Teams, effectively embedding lightweight contact center features, including wait-time announcements, intelligent routing, and SMS, directly into the Teams interface. Global reach is further bolstered by international SMS expansions in the UK and Australia, alongside alphanumeric sender ID support across 190 countries.

This is a nice set of related announcements that extends momentum on several fronts. WhatsApp and RCS have comparable adoption at this time, but RCS is gaining and WhatsApp Island is heading toward ad-based services. RCS was to disrupt WhatsApp and OTT messaging apps, but the MNOs want to milk it. 

Slack CRM: In a frantic attempt to justify Slack, Salesforce is shoehorning CRM features into a chat interface, hoping this will make customers flee slower. Slack CRM is a stripped-down, conversational interface that aims to turn Slackbot into a data-entry resource. The feature forces users to manage pipelines and service cases through chat commands. Why not use the Salesforce platform? Oh yeah, the price, complexity, and obsolescence. 

Dynamics Burned the Dashboard Boats: Microsoft Dynamics 365 has officially made Copilot for Service the default interface for Customer Service users, deprecating several legacy dashboards in the process. This Work IQ integration allows reps to pull Dynamics 365 case data directly into the Microsoft 365 Copilot interface. By deprecating legacy dashboards, Dynamics is mandating an AI-first workflow and increasing customer reliance on Copilot. 

UJET’s Channel-Led Google Motion: UJET launched Google Cloud CCaaS by UJET, a new managed service and global sales motion designed specifically for the midmarket and SMB segments. Delivered exclusively through AVANT’s network of Trusted Advisors, the offering provides businesses with access to Google’s full CX stack, including Gemini Enterprise for CX and Google CX Agent Studio, without GCP spend commitments. This program includes white-glove customer success and technical support.

This partnership replaces the enterprise-designed hoops and barriers that resist change with a trusted advisor path optimized for SMB and midmarket customers. It’s the democratization of hyperscale AI that strengthens UJET’s role as the gateway for Google CX. AVANT becomes the TSD (Technology Solutions Distributor) ambassador for hyperscaling. 

Genesys Predicts Bad CX: Genesys launched Predictive Journey Orchestration, an AI-driven monitoring tool that assigns churn risk scores. The system tracks web navigation and session data to trigger intrusive proactive interventions before a user makes a formal request. Agents are then provided a retention strategy optimized to undo CX damage. Predictive Journey Orchestration requires a Genesys AI Experience license. 

Twilio Solves Data Silos (again): Twilio launched Segment Unify, a feature that merges real-time CDP data directly into the Twilio Flex CCaaS agent desktop. This allows agents to see more of the customer’s digital history, such as website clicks, cart additions, and previous support interactions. Unlike traditional CRM lookups, Segment Unify focuses on behavioral data. Twilio uses a complex CDP to personalize interactions, whereas CCaaS providers tend to rely on complex third-party integrations.

ServiceNow Employee Center Pro: Updates to ServiceNow’s Employee Center Pro include a revamped Now Assist for Setup and enhanced mobile capabilities, which overlap with UCaaS features. ServiceNow is attempting to become the internal OS for large enterprises. As they add more communication and notification features, the line between an ITSM tool and a UCaaS platform blurs. 

Invoca AI Agents: Invoca announced the expansion of its AI agent capabilities, introducing an AI voice agent and an enhanced AI messaging agent. Invoca’s new AI Voice Agent uses digital journey data to capture caller intent, qualify leads, route high-intent callers, and connect call outcomes back to the marketing source. The expanded AI Messaging Agent engages buyers instantly via SMS after a web form submission or missed call, comes pre-trained on a brand’s high-converting conversations, and automatically manages appointments. The AI Messaging Agent is currently available, and the AI Voice Agent will enter beta this summer.

8x8 AI Studio: The native AI development environment allows any user to build, test, and deploy AI agents without developer skills. It is native to the 8x8 platform with voice, digital routing, and telephony pre-integrated. It offers a range of services, including appointment confirmation, service request follow-up, and internal help desk triage. A testing tier provides customers with a low-risk evaluation. 

The introduction of AI Studio is an aggressive, appropriate, and timely move. CEO Samuel Wilson told TalkingPointz that 8x8 is seeing solid uptake across verticals, and early feedback from customers and partners is validating the product. He also indicated that the use cases are primarily to support, not replace, human employees. The AI Studio was built in-house. 

Parloa Voice Fabric: Parloa introduced Voice Fabric 2026, a low-latency orchestration layer that facilitates real-time multilingual code-switching. The technology focuses on reducing the delay between speech recognition and response generation to sub-second levels. Latency has long been the uncanny valley of voice AI. Parloa is attempting to move from functional IVR to natural conversation. The ability to handle code-switching/translations is particularly significant for the EMEA and APAC markets. 

Kore.ai GXO: Kore.ai unveiled updates to its Experience Orchestration (GXO) platform, specifically optimized for sub-second voice-to-logic processing. The update is intended to enable the complete replacement of traditional DTMF and basic NLU IVR systems with generative AI-driven agents. GXO now features enhanced integration capabilities that allow the AI to trigger complex backend workflows, including authentication, billing inquiries, and scheduling, simultaneously while the caller is speaking. Kore.ai is aggressively targeting the legacy IVR market by linking high-speed voice processing directly to business logic. There is a prize for vendors that can consistently deliver sub-second responses while hitting backend APIs.

CXone 26.2: NiCE launched the CXone 26.2 release cycle alongside the debut of CXone Mpower SmartSpeak, an AI-powered translation solution developed with OneMeta. SmartSpeak provides real-time, consecutive interpretation for nearly 100 languages and dialects. Complementing this solution, the 26.2 update introduces agentic enhancements that allow AI agents to automatically connect to endpoints and MCP servers without manual schema configuration. The release also debuts a Coaching domain for the Data Conversation tool, allowing supervisors to use natural language queries to analyze workforce performance instead of relying on static dashboards. By embedding high-fidelity translation directly into the Mpower stack, NiCE is positioning CXone as a disruptive alternative to traditional regional BPO models and third-party interpretation services. Simultaneously, the move toward a zero-config environment removes a bottleneck that delays CCaaS deployments. 

NiCE’s Epic Integration: NiCE has announced a native integration between its CXone AI platform and Epic EHR, bringing patient records and omnichannel communications into a single interface within the Epic workspace. The integration allows healthcare agents to handle voice, SMS, WhatsApp, and social interactions without leaving the Epic environment. In other words, NiCE joins the Epic party – a necessary move as many CCaaS providers are circling healthcare. The move to embed CXone into a third-party UI contradicts earlier company stances that prioritized keeping agents within its workspace. An embedded CCaaS removes the swivel chair friction for healthcare agents.

Cognigy and ServiceNow: Cognigy announced a deep integration with ServiceNow to automate employee service desk remediation. The integration allows Cognigy’s conversational AI agents to natively trigger ServiceNow workflows, such as password resets, hardware procurement, and HR inquiries, directly through chat or voice interfaces. This partnership bridges the gap between external customer service AI and internal employee experience (EX) workflows. 

Google Customer Engagement Suite! Google added Emotion Logic to its Customer Engagement Suite, enabling CCaaS-native virtual agents to detect and respond to caller sentiment in real time. The feature analyzes acoustic cues and linguistic patterns to identify frustration, satisfaction, or urgency. What’s new here is using sentiment as a real-time logic gate.

The Yellow Autonomous Service Cloud: Yellow.ai has expanded its Autonomous Service Cloud by introducing industry-specific LLMs tailored to the healthcare and logistics sectors. Have we arrived at the verticalization of LLMs? Are we moving away from the one-LLM-size-fits-all era, or are LLMs and SLMs converging? 

Amazon Connect Adds Universal Agent Workspace: AWS announced the Universal Agent Workspace for Amazon Connect. This unified interface allows agents to manage voice calls, chats, and AWS-native emails on a single screen. It integrates AWS Contact Lens for real-time transcription and sentiment analysis directly into the workspace. AWS hopes to improve agent productivity metrics by consolidating voice and email into a single native flow. This move also makes Amazon Connect a more viable out-of-the-box solution.

Google and RingCentral Rediscover ChromeOS: Google Cloud and RingCentral have announced a multiyear global expansion of their ChromeOS for CCaaS partnership. The collaboration focuses on optimizing the RingCentral Contact Center experience on Chromebooks and ChromeOS-based thin clients. The Chromebook is a very suitable CCaaS agent desktop for a browser-based environment as it offers a low TCO with strong security. 

MSTeams Improves Collaboration: Zoom and Zendesk launched a Single-Seat licensing bundle specifically aimed at midsized companies drowning in SaaS. This joint offering merges Zoom Workplace (video and internal collab) and Zoom Phone with the Zendesk Suite Professional (ticketing/CRM) into a single procurement vehicle. Forget alphabetical order; list these companies first under Microsoft-Free Solutions. The arrangement offers a compromise between Best-of-Breed Exhaustion and Good-Enough Paranoia. This Zoom/Zendesk counteroffensive bets that customers will reject Microsoft’s stack. It’s an interesting alliance, but could be undone by dueling CCaaS solutions. 

Calling and UC

Microsoft Teams Call Delegation: Microsoft introduced Copilot call delegation, which allows M365 Copilot to answer incoming Teams calls on behalf of a user. The AI agent screens callers to gather intent and context, which it presents to the user for call screening. Additionally, the system integrates with Microsoft Bookings to schedule appointments with callers when the user is unavailable. This capability is part of the broader Wave 3 updates for M365 Copilot, emphasizing agentic workflows and multistep task execution. 

Teams Phone is moving toward agentic services capable of autonomous triage and scheduling. Microsoft is providing a digital assistant for individual employees (AIR for 1) that leverages the Work IQ data layer for context-aware scheduling. The feature is currently available to licensed Copilot users whose organizations have opted into the early-access Frontier program.

Calling M365 Copilot: Microsoft announced that the Copilot experience in Teams Phone is now fully powered by Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat. During a live call, users can launch a Copilot Chat side panel to generate summaries, surface insights, and execute tasks without interrupting the conversation. The integration leverages Microsoft's Work IQ layer, allowing users to prompt Copilot to cross-reference real-time call data, including emails, files, and calendar events. 

Microsoft is unifying the Teams Phone experience by embedding the full power of Microsoft 365 Copilot Chat directly into live calls. Copilot Chat and a calling side panel reduce context switching. The reliance on Work IQ is the key differentiator here; it moves beyond simple speech-to-text to provide contextual intelligence, allowing an employee to appear better informed during a call by instantly accessing related organizational knowledge that was previously buried in silos like Outlook or SharePoint.

Teams Phone Hits 28M: Microsoft reported that Teams Phone reached 28M active PSTN users as of its Q2 2026 reporting cycle. This milestone represents a steady climb from 26M users at the start of the year, driven largely by the accelerated adoption of Operator Connect and Teams Phone Mobile. The growth is concentrated in the F100, where 93% of organizations now use the broader Microsoft 365 ecosystem. Microsoft attributes the uptick to the deeper integration of AI-based features, including live translation and spam detection (available in the E5 license tier and as an add-on for E3 users). As impressive as the growth and numbers are, there’s a large gap between Teams users and Teams PSTN users. This UCaaS bundle is often the exception. 

RingSense for All: RingCentral has announced the inclusion of native RingSense AI across all Global MVP (Message, Video, Phone) tiers, retiring its previous standalone premium pricing model for the service. RingSense provides automated call summaries, sentiment analysis, and conversational insights natively within the user dashboard. This rollout suggests a broader strategy to focus on workflow orchestration rather than simple task automation. 

RingCentral is pivoting its business model by moving AI from a premium add-on to a core, native component of its platform. By giving away the AI layer, RingCentral protects its installed base from bundling pressure. AI is not a competitive differentiator, but how deeply it is integrated into business workflows is. 

Zoom Phone Actionable Call Insights: Zoom enhanced its AI Companion (AIC) calling side panel to provide contextual intelligence across calls, voicemails, SMS, and fax. Users will see tailored prompts based on the user’s active view. When managing specific assets, the panel can autonomously extract follow-up tasks from voicemails, translate SMS threads, and summarize unread messages. This expanded capability also includes a consolidated task view and the ability to query phone features directly through natural language.

This update integrates deep contextual AI directly into the telephony workflow to reduce administrative overhead and prioritize communications. The ability to extract tasks from voicemails and translate SMS threads natively addresses the fragmented nature of modern communications. 

Jabra Evolve2 85 G2: Jabra released the Evolve2 85 Gen 2, featuring new Bio-Acoustic technology that monitors sound exposure levels and individual ear canal responses to provide personalized hearing protection. Jabra is attempting to differentiate by moving into hearable health tech. 

Snom D892M: Snom introduced the D892M, a ruggedized DECT handset designed for industrial and harsh environments. The device features an IP65 rating for dust and water resistance and includes a dedicated alarm button for worker safety. It’s targeted at the deskless industrial worker where ruggedized hardware remains a necessity. 

Mediant 9000-SBC for Teams: AudioCodes released the Mediant 9000-SBC for high-density Microsoft Teams Phone deployments. The hardware supports up to 100,000 concurrent sessions and features native integration with Microsoft’s Operator Connect and Direct Routing architectures. This high-density SBC addresses the scaling challenges faced by very large global enterprises migrating legacy voice infrastructure to Microsoft Teams.

Business

CallTower Secures PE Investment: CallTower has secured a significant strategic investment from Court Square Capital Partners to accelerate its global expansion and enhance its proprietary technology stack. Enterprise self-management is becoming less viable in the agentic era. This capital injection ensures CallTower can scale its managed UCaaS and CCaaS services. With previous investors and management retaining a minority stake, the company is now aggressively positioned to pursue organic growth and strategic acquisitions.

Amazon/NLX: Amazon acquired NLX.ai, a conversational AI platform, to integrate its no-code visual canvas into Amazon Connect. The acquisition should help customers design and launch self-service AI experiences rather than manually cobble together Lex, Bedrock, and Lambda functions. NLX is being folded directly into the Amazon Connect product suite. Shortly after the acquisition, AWS announced that Amazon Connect is the foundation for four agentic solutions. NLX CEO and Co-Founder Andrei Papance will report up through Pasquale DeMaio, VP of Amazon Connect.

NLX cites United Airlines as a customer that used NLX to accelerate time-to-value for complex contact center migrations. This looks a lot like the NiCE acquisition of Cognigy, except Cognigy was a conversational AI leader, profitable, and came with numerous testimonials. Lufthansa, for example, cites impressive CX results, not just speed to market. United is a CX dumpster fire. Financial terms were not disclosed. 

Amazon/Globalstar: Amazon reached an agreement to acquire Globalstar for approximately $11.6B. This move is intended to strengthen Amazon’s Leo satellite business, particularly with direct-to-device (D2D) services, and includes a separate agreement with Apple to provide satellite connectivity to iPhones and other devices.

Amazon will gain control of Globalstar’s existing satellite operations, infrastructure, assets, spectrum licenses, and global authorizations. Amazon Leo plans to introduce its own next-generation D2D satellite system starting in 2028, which is expected to offer higher spectrum use and efficiency. The complete Leo network will comprise thousands of advanced satellites in low Earth orbit to support millions of customers.

Amazon will expand from 200 satellites in orbit to a target of 3,200 by 2029. Globalstar stockholders can elect to receive either $90 in cash or 0.3210 shares of Amazon common stock per share, capped at $90 per share. The deal’s closure is anticipated in 2027.

Apple has been a long-term partner and investor (more than $1B) in Globalstar. The partnership will allow Apple users to text emergency services, use Messages, request roadside assistance, and share their location. This is a major shortcut in providing satellite services to smartphones and in giving Musk’s Starlink viable competition.

The $5B Medallia Wipeout: Thoma Bravo handed over Medallia to its lenders, wrapping up ‌months of restructuring negotiations, according to two people familiar with the matter. The move wipes out $5.1B in equity for Thoma Bravo and co-investors. The company was acquired ​for $6.4B in 2021. Medallia and Bravo found the perfect storm: tightened enterprise software budgets, leaner AI-native competitors, and a PE software playbook of cost-cutting that could not outrun a $5B equity hole. Medallia joins Avaya and Mitel as great companies that have been strip-mined by PE. Is Verint/Calabrio next? The Verint acquisition was terrible timing for Thoma Bravo amid the major repricing of software. Verint founder and former CEO Dan Bodner looks like a genius. 

Mistral $830M: French AI pioneer Mistral has secured $830M in debt financing from a global banking consortium to fund a new data center near Paris. The facility, scheduled to go live in Q2 2026, will be powered by 13.8K Nvidia GB300 GPUs, bringing Mistral’s total capacity to 44 MW. This project is part of a broader strategy to reach 200 MW of capacity across Europe by the end of 2027. Mistral is attempting to build a sovereign moat from US competitors. While Mistral’s total funding is a fraction of OpenAI’s $180B or Anthropic’s $59B, its lean model is well-suited for inference processing. 

BSI/Sikom (Germany): BSI Software acquired Sikom. The acquisition aims to expand the BSI Customer Suite. Sikom will continue to operate as an independent company and brand, enabling it to scale its technology more quickly and reach new customer groups. 

M&A = Consolidation: The AV industry is still undergoing a significant period of consolidation, and the latest deals show this is happening on both sides of the market. Manufacturers are acquiring technology, talent, and adjacent capabilities to fill product gaps and broaden their portfolios, while integrators and service providers continue to absorb smaller specialists and regional firms to expand their reach and tighten control of the channel. As we’ve stated before, this is no longer an occasional trend but an ongoing reshaping of the industry. 

Danto’s AV M&A / Consolidation Report:

Manufacturers / media tech / pro AV

• AJA Video Systems is acquiring Comprimato, a software company focused on live video encoding and processing for virtualized and cloud production, which should strengthen AJA’s BRIDGE LIVE streaming portfolio.
• Thomas Riedel, owner of Riedel Communications, acquired ARRI, the film and broadcast technology company, in a deal AVNetwork described as a strategic alignment for innovation and growth.
• Sportway Media Group and Broadcast Solutions jointly acquired Studio Automated, an AI company for automated and remote live sports production, combining AI workflows with broadcast hardware and operational services.
• FOR-A acquired Tamu Radiance, along with Aizu Tamura Corporation, bringing Tamura’s audio and wireless intercom technology together with FOR-A’s video systems.
• TSL acquired JLCooper Electronics, preserving the JLCooper control brand and folding its products into TSL’s Hummingbird ecosystem.
• Apogee Insight acquired PMA Research, the longtime projector and display market intelligence firm, extending Apogee’s research footprint across display and broader Pro AV markets.
• Barco acquired VerVent, a high-end audio firm serving consumer and custom-install markets, to help Barco deliver more fully integrated immersive experiences.
• Amino Communications was acquired by Sapphire Technology Group, giving the Pro AV, digital signage, and pay TV supplier new private ownership and long-term backing for growth.
• Royer Labs was acquired by Sounds Great Holdings, giving the microphone maker a new owner while keeping its Burbank base and putting renewed emphasis on global sales and product development.

Integrators / service providers

• CTI acquired Nomad AV Systems, a courtroom AV specialist, adding nearly two decades of justice-sector expertise to CTI’s Justice Division. AV industry integrators continue to consolidate, and CTI remains one of the clearest examples of the larger firms regularly buying niche specialists.
• CTI also acquired Streamline Solutions of Seattle, expanding its Pacific Northwest coverage and adding more commercial AV installation depth. 
• Collabtech Group acquired MediaCentric, a wholesale AV design, installation, commissioning, and services firm with strengths in digital signage, video walls, and large-scale field operations. 
• Virtual Technologies Group acquired Vector Tech Group, a regional provider of integrated IT solutions, continuing VTG’s expansion under private-equity backing. 

Leadership Changes

Five9 named Jay Lee as Chief Marketing and Growth Officer. This new role unites global marketing with revenue strategy and operations. Lee brings CMO experience from Icertis and Avalara and served time at GE Capital, American Express, and PayPal. 

Kristen Koenig was promoted to GM AI & Collab GTM at RingCentral. She will lead the global revenue strategy for AIR, ACE, and AIM. Kristen joined RC in 2023 through the acquisition of Hopin's event assets. Wildix announced the appointment of Michael Bubernack as its first-ever official Spokesperson. Bubernack is the Co-CEO of ET&T, a 20-person managed services provider. 

Tim Cook will step down as CEO of Apple after a 15-year run that saw the company’s stock appreciate more than 10x. John Ternus, currently head of hardware engineering, will assume the CEO role on Sept. 1, while Cook transitions to the position of executive chairman. The market reaction to this historic leadership change is cautiously mixed; analysts are balancing optimism for future hardware-focused innovation against existing worries concerning Apple’s high valuation and the execution of its AI strategy. 

Meet Us

Dave Michels is the founder and chief protagonist of TalkingPointz and the editor-in-chief of the Insider Report. [email protected]. David Danto is AV Aficionado at TalkingPointz. [email protected]. 

Goodreads

1. NASA astronauts prove that sending an email really is rocket science – NASA launched a test of its new moon rocket program, and the astronauts’ email crashed because they use Outlook.
2. YouTube Lays Claim to Another Crown: The World’s Largest Media Company – YouTube’s revenue passed Disney, making it the world’s largest media company.
3. Transforming Workspaces: Opportunities for AV Integrators in the Hybrid Era – Danto is quoted in Commercial Integrator about the future of workspaces.
4. Anthropic admits Claude Code users hitting usage limits ‘way faster than expected’ – No Bubble. Unexpected quota drain prompts complaints and breaks automated workflows. 
5. Anthropic’s New Product Aims to Handle the Hard Part of Building AI Agents – Amid rapid enterprise growth, Anthropic is trying to lower the barrier to entry for businesses to build AI agents with Claude.
6. China Imposes New Rules to Block Foreign Companies From ‘Decoupling’ – Multinationals in China are concerned that the regulations could allow authorities to penalize companies and executives for shifting supply chains away from the country.
7. John Deere to Pay $99 Million in Monumental Right-to-Repair Settlement – The ag manufacturing giant will also make digital diagnostic, maintenance, and repair tools available to third parties for 10 years.
8. Monitoring Enterprise AI Adoption in the US Economy – Public surveys show adoption appears correlated with firm size, and is notable in professional services and finance, likely driven by use in cognitive and analytical work.
9. Anthropic Changes Pricing to Bill Firms Based on AI Use as Demand Jumps – AI pricing was likely unsustainable, but massive adoption of agentic coding is making it critical. Long-term, token budgets may rival headcount budgets.
10. AI’s New Training Data: Your Old Work Slacks and Emails – Defunct startups are being liquidated for their Slack archives, Jira tickets, and email threads – operational exhaust that AI labs now treat as premium training data.
11. So, About That AI Bubble – Thanks to the rise of Claude Code and other AI agents, revenues are finally catching up to the hype.
12. AI that can hack anything was hacked – You can’t make this stuff up.
13. This bank CEO let his AI clone handle an earnings call –  Then he signed an OpenAI deal. 
14. Three great pieces on telecommunications history: WSJ: From the Telegraph to the Smartphone: How Information Technology Unified a Nation; Versions Podcast: How AT&T created the most iconic phone ever; Wired: Say Goodbye to the Undersea Cable That Made the Global Internet Possible. 

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