8x8’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, 8x8 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 8x8 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, 8x8 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 8x8 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 8x8.
- 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, 8x8’s AI usage data gives a clear signal to CX leaders prioritizing channels.
In Q3, 8x8 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.
8x8 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.
8x8 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 8x8 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: