From a NiCE $955MN acquisition to an eyebrow-raising AI prediction from OpenAI’s Sam Altman, here are extracts from some of this week’s most popular news stories.
NiCE to Acquire Cognigy for $995MN, Wants to “Set a New Standard” for AI in Customer Experience
NiCE has agreed a $955MN deal to acquire Cognigy, the prominent enterprise conversational and agentic AI provider.
Cognigy was one of the first enterprise technology vendors to launch AI agents in January 2025, making regular new releases ever since.
In doing so, it leverages a strong heritage as an AI leader, with Cognigy at the forefront of the latest Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave reports for conversational AI.
As such, NiCE gains an advanced AI portfolio and a highly skilled team that has proven ahead of the curve with AI agents.
Matched with the CXone Mpower Orchestrator, NICE hopes to lead the era of AI-first customer service.
Celebrating the news, Scott Russell, CEO of NiCE, stated:
This is a landmark moment for NiCE, a strategic move that fast-tracks our AI innovation agenda and sets a new standard for customer experience in the AI era.
NiCE will have had plenty of options as it scoped conversational AI vendors pivoting to agentic. After all, the market is crowded (Read more…).
“Totally, Totally Gone”: OpenAI CEO Sam Altman Predicts the End of Human Customer Service
Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI, has warned of a future where AI will eliminate entire job categories, including customer support.
The CEO made the comments last week during the Fed’s Integrated Review of the Capital Framework for Large Banks Conference in Washington.
Speaking to Michelle Bowman, Vice Chair of the Federal Reserves, Altman first stated:
There are cases where entire classes of jobs will go away, [and] there are entirely new classes of jobs that will come.
When pressed on what some of those lost jobs might be, he used customer support staff as an example of a role that will be “totally, totally gone.”
Already, various tech companies building AI agents for service have had significant success in automating customer contacts.
For instance, Salesforce and ServiceNow claim to have mechanized 85 and 80 percent of their internal customer queries, respectively (Read more…).
Five9 Lays Off Three Senior Execs with Broader Jobs Cuts to Come, Sources
Five9 has ousted three senior executives, a person familiar with the matter has told CX Today.
Niki Hall, Chief Marketing Officer, Jim Doran, EVP of Corporate Strategy, and Tricia Yankovich, Head of HR, are the three execs in question.
The source also revealed that broader layoffs are imminent, although they didn’t disclose the scale.
Any potential layoffs would be Five9’s third round in less than 12 months, following a seven percent and a four percent workforce reduction in August 2024 and May 2025, respectively.
Before August 2024, the CCaaS stalwart had never made a round of layoffs.
Soon after its second round of job cuts, Five9 underscored its aim to secure “long-term profitable growth” and bolster its “long-term competitive position.”
At the time, Mike Burkland, Chairman and CEO of Five9, also looked to ease concerns by highlighting some “really exciting marketing initiatives” that the company was plotting.
Since this article was first published, Five9 has confirmed its restructure in a statement to CX Today that you can read here.
First Contact Center Solution Certified for Microsoft Teams’ New Integration Model
Microsoft has certified the first solution under its new contact center and Microsoft Teams integration model.
The honor goes to the CentrePal Contact Center for Microsoft Teams.
Via the Unify framework, CentrePal integrates with the collaboration platform using Azure Communication Services (ACS), Microsoft’s CPaaS solution.
ACS provides the underbelly for Microsoft Teams, supporting its voice, chat, video, and AI APIs.
By integrating with Teams through Microsoft ACS, Centrepal establishes one shared communications layer that runs between CCaaS and UCaaS.
That will allow them to standardize interactions across the business, streamline billing, and reduce management burden.
Upon the launch of the Unify model, Tom Arbuthnot, Co-Founder of Empowering.Cloud, highlighted more prospective benefits. He told CX Today:
The tight and easier integration to Teams should bring some benefits, including better options for AI integration, but it also brings a new consumption-based cost model for the ACS service usage.
While Centrepal may be first to gain certification, seven other contact center providers are completing the process for similar solutions (Read more…).
