With telecom providers sniping and new communications channels rising, there's a lot going on in the CPaaS market.
Meanwhile, with the likes of Cisco, Ericsson, and Twilio bolstering their CPaaS stacks, innovation within the space is heating up.
Then, there's heightening demand, with Gartner predicting that 90 percent of businesses will leverage CPaaS platforms in 2028, up from 50 percent in 2023.
As these market shifts occur, many more trends come to the fore. Here are seven excellent examples.
1. Telcos Race Onto the CPaaS Scene
One of the most compelling CPaaS trends revolves around the growing presence of telcos in the CPaaS industry.
After investing heavily in advanced networks and 5G solutions in the last couple of years, telcos have begun searching for ways to monetize their infrastructure.
CPaaS offers a unique opportunity for telcos to deliver "network APIs" to businesses – enabling functionality that moves beyond the basics of standard voice and messaging capabilities.
Indeed, network APIs allow companies to optimize call routing, manage application bandwidth, and even apply network intelligence to reduce latency.
For example, a developer might use a network API to dynamically allocate more resources during a video call, ensuring the session remains stable even when thousands of users hop on at the same time.
These network APIs are pulling telecom giants into CPaaS, presenting them with a new monetization stream.
Yet, instead of treating programmable communications as a side project, telcos are merging it with core network functions, so enterprises can accomplish more with their technology stacks.
2. CPaaS Becomes an Infrastructure for Agentic AI
CPaaS already provides the communications channels that businesses can run conversational AI over and automate interactions. Yet, in the future of customer communications, it promises to play a bigger role.
Indeed, according to Roberto Kutic, the COO for Infobip, the CPaaS industry is rapidly evolving into an "infrastructure" for AI. He noted:
What started as a way to integrate messaging, voice, and video into apps and services is now transforming into something much bigger; an essential infrastructure layer for AI-driven customer interactions.
As customer communications become increasingly proactive, that transformation will further take shape.
After all, CPaaS integrates with various systems and allows businesses to create workflows based on signals from these systems.
So, consider incidents like a network outage, transport delay, or schedule change. CPaaS solutions can recognize these events and create a workflow to alert the contact center.
But, now consider a workflow that checks the CRM to isolate impacted customers, informs them of the issue, and gives them relevant updates.
By utilizing CPaaS for the workflow and running AI agents over the top, contact centers can completely automate such processes.
3. Brands Adopt Rich Engagement Channels
Enterprises are increasingly searching for ways to extend their communication capabilities, seeking out new channels relevant to their customer base.
As such, many organizations are embracing rich messaging platforms like RCS, WhatsApp, and even Apple Messages for Business.
Why? Because traditional brand messaging is stilted compared to the communications that consumers are familiar with when interacting with family and friends.
They want to use emojis, send images, and perhaps even voice notes.
Brands recognize this and want to get more personal with customers so they feel a tighter bond with the business.
As such, over the next five years, experts predict OTT channels like WhatsApp and Viber will become increasingly commonplace within business communications.
Many companies will also overlay these new channels with AI solutions, leveraging tools like image recognition to craft increasingly imaginative customer experiences.
Yet, messaging won’t be the only avenue for growth in the CPaaS sector.
Indeed, many vendors are already experimenting with intuitive video – particularly for technical troubleshooting and know-your-customer (KYC)-focused tasks.
4. CPaaS Merges with CCaaS
Essentially, there are three core elements of a CPaaS platform: integrations, business logic, and communications.
Each layer adds significant value to a contact center solution.