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.
Consider integrations. By connecting a contact center to in-house solutions, on-premise systems, and back-end software, CPaaS enables a much more customized contact center environment.
Also, consider how the business logic layer enables workflows between those third-party solutions and the contact center, enabling more proactive customer service.
Finally, CPaaS also brings the ability to add new channels into the contact center ecosystem that work seamlessly with others and enable omnichannel.
Therefore, it’s no surprise that brands like 8×8, Vonage, and – perhaps most aggressively – Cisco are merging their CPaaS and CCaaS products.
As Kutic summarized: “These two industries, once distinct, are merging into a single intelligent ecosystem where communication isn’t just a channel, it’s the foundation of AI-powered automation, hyper-personalization, and real-time decision-making.”
5. Generative AI Drives Innovation
Before agentic came generative AI (GenAI), and CPaaS players are still innovating with it and expanding their portfolios.
For instance, Twilio added OpenAI’s real-time API to its CPaaS portfolio. With this, developers can pass text and audio into GPT-4o and have their solution respond via either medium or both.
With this capability, Twilio allows developers to create customer experiences that blend voice, messaging, and languages.
Meanwhile, Cisco Webex is combining generative and “dynamic” AI with CPaaS to develop and send personalized videos across numerous channels at scale.
Developers can adapt parts of the video to customer preferences, including copy, images, backgrounds, narration, and even avatars.
Most commonly, however, CPaaS providers are connecting their toolkits with leading generative AI solutions offered by the likes of Microsoft, Google, and Amazon to enable instant access to intuitive bots.
6. CPaaS Providers Cater to Less Technical Users & Specific Industries
One of the major trends helping to increase CPaaS adoption today, is a growing focus on improving the user experience and accessibility of CPaaS platforms.
Low-code and no-code solutions are becoming commonplace, allowing users in non-technical roles to build and modify communication flows with minimal support.
Some companies are also building templated or “pre-built” solutions to accelerate deployment for smaller teams.
Of course, CPaaS providers are extending their “hardcore” developer toolkits, working more closely with partners.
However, as they do so, they enhance the UI, empowering companies to unlock new functionality faster and more efficiently.
Another critical trend here is that CPaaS vendors are targeting specific verticals, grouping APIs, pre-built workflows, and AI solutions for the relevant industry.
Some smaller vendors, like CM.com in event management, have had great success with such a verticalized strategy.
7. Vendor-Neutral Platforms Come to the Fore
One final emerging CPaaS trend is the rise of vendor-neutral solutions.
While a lot of CPaaS providers still offer proprietary ecosystems focused on end-to-end functionality, many are recognizing the value of vendor-neutral, flexible platforms.
That trend rises as more organizations become wary of vendor lock-in. They want the freedom to choose best-of-breed APIs, channels, and workflows without having to rework their entire infrastructure.
A vendor-neutral CPaaS platform offers more elasticity, ensuring companies can mix and match their tools.
Bandwidth is an example of a provider having success with such a strategy, allowing its customers to mix and match solutions from various vendors.
The Future of the CPaaS Space Is Bright
The latest CPaaS trends highlight several shifts in the future of enterprise communications and customer engagement.
Indeed, CPaaS isn’t just about adding messaging features to apps or unlocking voice capabilities anymore.
Instead, this technology is introducing a new way for companies to reshape entire workflows, harness AI, and reinvent customer experiences.
Learn more about two of the CPaaS space’s biggest players. Check out the article: Twilio vs. Vonage: A Comparison of Two CPaaS Giants
