Artificial Intelligence (AI) is rapidly transforming the Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) market, with generative AI leading the change, according to a new report from Synergy Research Group. As AI plays an increasingly larger role in customer service, important questions arise: How much of the CCaaS market is actually driven by AI? Will contact center agents be replaced by AI? And, what does the latest Synergy research reveal about these emerging trends?
Diverse Approaches to AI in CCaaS
The integration of AI in CCaaS is taking place through various approaches, each with different levels of automation:
- AI Assistant / Agent Co-pilot: This approach uses generative AI to enhance the capabilities of human agents by providing real-time assistance, generating responses, and automating routine tasks. This allows agents to handle interactions more effectively.
- Limited Automation: In this scenario, AI, including generative AI and conversational AI, is used to automate basic interactions, such as answering frequently asked questions or handling initial inquiries, while human agents manage more complex tasks.
- Higher Automation (>60%): Advanced implementations of AI, especially generative AI, enable a high degree of automation, where AI handles most customer interactions. Some companies are exploring fully automated contact centers driven by these technologies.
Impact of Generative AI on Contact Center Agents
Jeremy Duke, chief analyst and founder of Synergy Research Group, comments: “Generative AI, a powerful subset of AI, is not yet ready to replace all contact center agents. However, it is already being used in specific cases where full automation is possible, allowing companies to experiment with customer service operations fully driven by AI.” Duke adds: “While the CCaaS market continues to grow rapidly, generative AI can reduce agent turnover and limit the growth of the number of agents by handling repetitive tasks, allowing agents to focus on more complex, higher-value interactions.”
Contribution of AI and Generative AI to CCaaS Revenue
Currently, AI, including generative AI, represents a single-digit percentage of total CCaaS market revenue. Although its revenue share is modest today, generative AI is expected to play a much more significant role in the coming years as technology advances and adoption expands.
Synergy’s Evolving Research on the CCaaS Market
In response to the evolving CCaaS market, Synergy Research has expanded its report to include the latest developments in AI and generative AI. Our new CCaaS segmentation report provides insights into market leadership across different segments—lower, middle, and upper market—highlighting that each segment is led by different companies, all of which face competition from a diverse group of market participants.
What’s Next for Generative AI in CCaaS?
Generative AI is at the forefront of the AI revolution in CCaaS, offering unprecedented opportunities for automation and efficiency. However, instead of eliminating jobs, generative AI is expected to transform them, creating new roles for more sophisticated and skilled agents. As this technology continues to evolve, its impact on the CCaaS market will only grow, shaping the future of customer service.
Source: Synergy Research