Contact Center and Omnichannel teams are moving into a tougher phase of AI evaluation, as new research and deployment signals show buyers need proof across platform selection, workflow execution, workforce design, QA governance, and measurable value.
TL;DR
- ISG’s 2026 Contact Centers Buyers Guide shows buyers are evaluating AI alongside automation, analytics, integration, governance, and lifecycle ROI.
- Telstra is using Salesforce Agentforce to automate live service, refund, and security-permission workflows across more than 1,000 contact center representatives.
- Cresta’s 2026 CX Workforce Report says only nine percent of customer conversations are fully handled by AI without human involvement.
- ScorebuddyCX finds AI QA adoption is widespread, but trust, review discipline, and coaching conversion remain uneven.
- The signal for CX leaders is clear: AI value now depends on whether platforms can support real operating change, not just feature adoption.
ISG Shows The Buyer Bar Is Getting Wider
The latest ISG Buyers Guide Contact Centers 2026 provides a useful starting point for the week because it shows how contact center buying criteria are expanding.
ISG evaluated 27 software providers and named NiCE, Verint, and Genesys as the top three overall leaders. It also identified Content Guru, Dialpad, Five9, Genesys, Microsoft, NiCE, RingCentral, Salesforce, Sprinklr, Talkdesk, Verint, and Zendesk as Exemplary providers.
The guide weighted Product Experience at 80%, covering capability and platform strength. Capability included areas such as agent workspace and collaboration, knowledge management, experience and interaction analytics, AI and automation, and AI governance and model operations. Platform criteria included adaptability, manageability, reliability, and usability.
Customer Experience accounted for the remaining 20%, with ISG assessing validation and TCO/ROI. That matters because buyer scrutiny is no longer limited to what a platform can do in a product demonstration. Buyers increasingly need evidence that the provider can support adoption, lifecycle value, and outcomes after deployment.
Why It Matters for Contact Center and Omnichannel
ISG’s framework points to a more demanding enterprise buying environment. Contact center platforms are being judged as broader customer engagement environments that need to orchestrate interactions, workflows, analytics, governance, and operational decisions across the customer journey.
That raises the stakes for vendors and buyers. AI capability is now one part of a wider platform question: can the system integrate with enterprise workflows, govern AI behavior, support self-service, improve employee experience, and demonstrate value over time?
The rest of this week’s news make that buyer shift more concrete. Telstra shows what AI execution can look like inside live workflows. Cresta shows how AI changes the shape of human work. ScorebuddyCX shows why trust and feedback loops decide whether AI insight becomes operational improvement.
Telstra Puts Agentic AI Into Live Service Workflows
Salesforce said Telstra is deploying Agentforce to automate high-volume processes across interim services, refunds, and security compliance.
The rollout already covers millions of customer interactions annually and supports more than 1,000 contact center representatives. Telstra has several use cases in production, including an interim service agent that validates eligibility, calculates refund amounts, monitors service restoration, applies refunds, and updates customer records.
Telstra is also using a security permissions agent to monitor user access, system configurations, and permissions across its Salesforce environment. Salesforce said the agent identifies high-risk permissions and analyzes access patterns, reducing the manual effort required for routine compliance and governance activities. Amy Childs, Customer Service Executive at Telstra, framed the deployment as a way to increase service efficiency while keeping accountability with the frontline team:
“Agentic AI is the next phase of AI at Telstra, but our people remain accountable and core to customer service delivery.”
Why It Matters for Contact Center and Omnichannel
Telstra’s use case is important because it reaches into service administration, refund calculation, compliance, and record updates. Those areas sit closer to operating reality than conversational AI alone.
For enterprise buyers, the question is whether AI can perform safely inside workflows that affect money, eligibility, records, and regulatory obligations. Telstra’s deployment suggests the next competitive test for vendors will involve controlled action, not just faster answers.
Salesforce also said future Agentforce capabilities for Telstra include a billing and payments agent and an email triage agent for B2B sales teams. That roadmap points to a broader service model where AI spans customer support, back-office processing, compliance, and revenue-adjacent workflows.
Cresta Says Contact Center AI Still Runs Through Humans
Cresta’s 2026 CX Workforce Report challenges the idea that contact centers are quickly becoming fully autonomous.
The report, based on a survey of 300 U.S. leaders responsible for customer support or CX software decisions, found that 76% of customer conversations are handled by humans and AI together. That includes 35% handled collaboratively and 41% handled by human agents with behind-the-scenes AI assistance.
Only nine percent of conversations are fully handled by AI with no human involvement.
Cresta also found that 93% of leaders say calls handled by human agents are becoming more complex. Meanwhile, 97% say AI has enabled them to redeploy staff into higher-value work, and 92% expect AI adoption to increase demand for skilled human workers. The report summarized the workforce implication this way: