8×8’s latest earnings show what it looks like when a vendor leans fully into usage-based pricing for CPaaS, digital, and AI, and uses that growth to offset churn from an acquired platform.
In its fiscal Q3 2026, 8×8 delivered:
- Total revenue of $185 million, up about 3.4 percent year over year, above the high end of guidance.
- Service revenue of $179.7 million, up 3.6 percent year over year and also ahead of guidance.
On the surface, that is steady, not spectacular, growth. The more important story for CX leaders sits underneath the headline numbers: the usage-based side of the house is now big enough, and growing fast enough, to carry the final meaningful churn from their Fuze acquisition three years ago, or as Samuel Wilson, CEO at 8×8 summed it up:
“We are seeing encouraging signs across the business. Usage-based revenue is scaling rapidly. Adoption of our AI-based solutions is accelerating.”
Usage-Based Revenue: From Side Bet To Strategic Engine
A few years ago, 8×8 looked like a classic SaaS UCaaS and CCaaS vendor. Today, a growing share of its momentum is coming from usage-based offerings that map more cleanly to CX outcomes.
In Q3:
- Usage-based offerings (CPaaS APIs, digital channels, and AI solutions) grew nearly 60 percent year over year.
- These offerings now account for about 21 percent of service revenue, up from around 14 percent a year earlier.
That mix shift matters for three reasons:
- It is absorbing Fuze churn.
All Fuze customers have now been migrated to the core 8×8 platform and the legacy Fuze environment has been shut down. As expected, some customers did not make the jump, which is reflected in guidance. - It validates usage-based pricing as more than a niche experiment.
When CPaaS, digital, and AI were small line items, usage-based pricing felt like optional innovation. At over one-fifth of service revenue and growing several times faster than the rest of the business, it is now a core commercial model inside 8×8. - It shows where CX budgets are actually moving.
Rather than simply buying more agent seats, customers are paying for interactions, automations, and outcomes. That shift aligns closely with the questions many CX leaders are asking about AI economics, including the “virtual seats” issue explored in CX Today’s recent piece, “The $50 Billion Question:”
Voice-Led AI Shows Where The Real Volume Is
Alongside the revenue mix shift, 8×8’s AI usage data gives a clear signal to CX leaders prioritizing channels.
In Q3, 8×8 reported:
- Customer contracts for intelligent customer assistant products up 70 percent year over year.
- Voice AI interactions up more than 200 percent, now representing the vast majority of AI usage on the platform.
Wilson put it simply:
“Voice remains the channel of choice, and our core IP in voice communications is an increasingly valuable competitive advantage.”
Customers may browse in digital, but for complex, emotional, or high-value issues, they still call. What is changing is who handles the first interaction.
8×8 highlighted familiar use cases:
- Voice bots capturing serial numbers and routing calls by intent.
- Automated biometric identification and balance checks in financial services.
- Self-service bill payment journeys that authenticate, trigger an SMS, and complete with Apple Pay.
- Healthcare AI assistants booking appointments 24/7, then handing off to staff.
Crucially, most of this is billed on a pay-as-you-use basis, which reshapes how CX teams roll out AI:
- You can launch micro-use cases without renegotiating big contracts.
- When ROI is proven, higher usage drives higher revenue automatically, without a fresh sales cycle.
As Wilson noted:
“The pay-as-you-go approach appeals to customers because it reduces risk as they adopt new technologies. It also raises the bar for vendors. Revenue is linked directly to successful customer outcomes.”
What Fuze Churn Tells Us About Platform Risk
The Fuze story is the uncomfortable part of the quarter, but it is also one of the most useful for CX leaders managing vendor risk.
8×8 has now:
- Fully migrated former Fuze customers to its integrated platform.
- Decommissioned the legacy Fuze environment.
- Quantified the remaining revenue impact in guidance.
The company positions Fuze as a catalyst for its shift with Kevin Kraus, CFO at 8×8 saying:
“Over the last four years, the former Fuze customers generated cumulative revenue of more than $300 million. The resulting cash flow from the acquisition allowed us to increase our investments in innovation… and aggressively pay down debt.”
At the same time, some customers did not make the move, and that is a useful reminder:
- Every major platform migration carries attrition risk, even with a clear path forward.
- Vendors often trade short-term revenue for a simpler, more efficient stack.
- The strongest models are those that fund that transition through new usage growth, not just higher prices on legacy seats.
8×8 is trying to balance that equation. It has:
- Delivered its twentieth consecutive quarter of positive operating cash flow.
- Reported operating income of $21.7 million and an 11.7 percent operating margin above guidance.
- Cut debt principal by $224 million since August 2022, more than halving annualized interest expense.
For CX buyers, the signal is that financial discipline and usage-based growth can coexist, even while a vendor works through churn tied to legacy platforms.
What This Means For CX Leaders Planning 2026-2027
For CX leaders, the message from 8×8’s quarter is less about one vendor and more about how to structure your own roadmap and contracts.
Here are three practical implications:
1. Design AI Rollouts Around Usage, Not Seats
If AI assistants, digital channels, and CPaaS APIs are where your innovation is happening, then your contracts should reflect that.
Consider:
- Making usage-based pricing the default for new AI and automation pilots.
- Starting with micro-use cases that can prove ROI quickly, such as payment journeys, appointment scheduling, or authentication flows.
- Setting explicit thresholds where, once usage or savings hits a certain level, you automatically expand the scope or add new use cases.
This keeps your financial risk low while giving your team headroom to scale winning ideas.
2. Stress-test Your Vendors’ Ability To Handle Churn and Migration
The Fuze story is a reminder to ask harder questions in RFPs and QBRs:
- How many platforms is the vendor really running today, and what is the consolidation plan?
- What percentage of their revenue is still tied to legacy environments?
- How are they funding migrations internally, and how much depends on cross-subsidizing from older customers?
Vendors that can point to usage-based growth lines, like 8×8’s 60 percent increase in CPaaS, digital, and AI usage, will be better placed to absorb churn without cutting corners on support or innovation.
3. Treat Voice As The Primary AI Interface, Not An Afterthought
8×8’s data shows voice AI interactions now represent the vast majority of AI activity on its platform, even as digital channels grow.
For CX teams, that means:
- Do not deprioritize voice journeys when building your AI roadmap.
- Look for vendors whose voice capabilities and AI stack are tightly integrated, not bolted together.
- Redesign key call flows with AI at the front door, but keep humans in the loop for complex or emotional cases.
The goal is not to eliminate agents. 8×8 actually reported contact center seats up both quarter on quarter and year on year, even as AI usage surged. The goal is to shift agents to higher value interactions while AI handles repetitive work at scale.
Usage-Based Models As A CX Pressure Valve
If you step back from the numbers, 8×8’s quarter reads like an early case study in how CX vendors can unwind legacy complexity without stalling innovation.
A few years from now, the headline may not be about Fuze at all. It will likely be about:
- How quickly usage-based revenue grew as a share of total service revenue.
- How much of that growth came from AI-led voice and digital journeys.
- Which CX leaders used those models to unlock real productivity gains, not just to move budget around.
For CX leaders planning 2026 and 2027, the takeaway is clear. Align your contracts to the outcomes you care about, and push your vendors to meet you there. If your roadmap is full of AI, automation, and dynamic customer journeys, then your pricing model probably should be too.
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