When the Playbook Runs Out: Closing the Real-Time Agent Assist Gap with AI - CallMiner x CCW Vegas 2026

The Reality of Voice AI in the Contact Centre: From Pilot to Production - AudioCodes

In this CX Today interview, Marcus Law speaks with Ilan Avner, Director of Product Management at AudioCodes, about the practical reality of moving Voice AI from proof of concept into production. The conversation explores why so many Voice AI projects stall after promising pilots, what enterprises often underestimate about voice infrastructure, and why connectivity, latency, noise handling, scalability, redundancy, and human-agent handoff matter just as much as the AI model itself. Avner also discusses how platforms such as AudioCodes Live Hub and AI Agents can help enterprises build a more resilient production environment for Voice AI use cases, including voice bots, agent assistance, and real-time translation. Watch the full interview to learn what CX and contact center leaders should ask before putting Voice AI into production.

When the Playbook Runs Out: Closing the Real-Time Agent Assist Gap with AI - CallMiner x CCW Vegas 2026

At CCW Vegas 2026, Rob Scott sits down with Jonathan 'JR' Ranger, Chief Customer Officer at CallMiner, to explore the company's latest AI innovation, 'Real-Time AI Guidance,' and what it actually means for agents, customers, and contact center leaders navigating an increasingly AI-driven world.  JR breaks down how the technology works in practice, why hold times and transfers are no longer an acceptable fallback, and why he believes agents who embrace AI will thrive rather than disappear. He also gets candid about why so many AI deployments fall short, and what organizations need to do differently to see real results.  If you're leading CX strategy, running a contact center, or just trying to separate the AI hype from the reality, this one's worth your time.

Five9 Explains How Human-in-the-Loop AI Drives Better CX Outcomes

In this CX Today interview, Nicole Willing speaks with Jonathan Rosenberg, Chief Technology Officer at Five9, about the role of human-in-the-loop design in AI-powered customer experience. Rosenberg explains why mature AI strategies should not treat human intervention as a failure or last resort. Instead, humans play a critical role in continuous learning, governance, high-risk decisions, and customer interactions where emotion, complexity, or value requires a human touch. The conversation explores why businesses should avoid chasing 100 percent automation, how AI can still support agents when interactions are handed over, and why CX leaders need stronger auditing, monitoring, and performance evaluation as AI agents become more common. Rosenberg also shares practical advice for organizations beginning their AI journey: start with simple, high-confidence use cases, prove value, build oversight structures, and then expand carefully.

Why Your AI ROI Numbers Are Probably Wrong – And What to Measure Instead

Forethought’s Antoine Nasr discusses how outcome-based AI is reshaping the way enterprises measure the true value of customer service automation  In this CX Today discussion, Associate Editor Rhys Fisher sits down with Antoine Nasr, Head of AI at Forethought, recently acquired by Zendesk. The pair discuss Forethought’s agentic AI push to tackle one of the most uncomfortable conversations in the CX space right now: is the ROI you're reporting on your AI investment actually telling you anything useful?  Twelve months of AI euphoria in the enterprise is giving way to a harder question: was it worth it? Antoine Nasr makes the case that most organizations are measuring the wrong things, and explains what Forethought is doing differently:  Deflection is a broken metric: A deflected ticket tells you nothing about whether the customer's issue was actually resolved. Forethought's outcome-based pricing model only charges when the AI agent genuinely resolves a conversation, and shows admins exactly why each one was classified the way it was.  The $1B ROI figure? Already outdated: Antoine is candid that Forethought's headline customer ROI number has already been surpassed, and walks through the framework for calculating both the hard dollar savings and the softer but real gains in CSAT, brand value, and churn reduction.  AI as a single entry point: User expectations have shifted. Customers no longer want to navigate your org structure, they want one interface that routes intelligently across support, commerce, sales, and beyond. Forethought's RevTech integrations are built around that reality.  Self-improving agents are here: Forethought's Discover product automatically identifies support topic gaps, builds agents to handle them, and improves after every interaction, closing the loop between performance data and agent behavior.

Trustpilot: Your Brand Is Invisible to AI, And Reviews Are the Fix

How customer feedback has quietly become the most powerful trust signal in the age of AI search  CX Today's Associate Editor Rhys Fisher sits down with Alicia Skubick, Chief Customer Officer at Trustpilot, to unpack the platform's latest research.  With AI now shaping how consumers discover and evaluate brands before they ever land on a website, the rules of visibility have changed. This is the conversation that makes the business case for trust in real, measurable terms.  Trustpilot's latest 'What AI Says About You' report analyzed over 800,000 AI responses, and the findings are hard to ignore. Brands without a Trustpilot profile appear in just 1% of AI-generated answers. Those that actively collect and respond to reviews? 75.3%. Alicia breaks down what that means for CX teams on the ground.  AI behaves like a cautious consumer – it checks ratings, reads review distributions, and flags missing profiles as red flags, just like your most sceptical customer would  Responding beats collecting – brands that respond to reviews (not just gather them) see citation rates jump from 53% to 75%. Generic replies don't cut it; specificity is what AI crawlers reward  The NPS question – Alicia makes the case that open-platform review systems are replacing NPS for many businesses, delivering the same real-time insight with the added bonus of AI visibility  Speed to value is real – setting up a profile and inviting customers can shift visibility from near-zero to 53% in weeks, not months, with AI-driven customers worth 4.4x more on average  Whether you're a CX leader mapping new customer journeys or an ops manager stretched thin, this one's worth your 15 minutes.