Kerravala: resolution quality is contact center AI's new unit of value

TheCUBE Research's Bob Laliberte and ZK Research's Zeus Kerravala drew their conclusions after the AI ROI in Contact Center Summit, where they reflected on insights from Cisco Systems Inc., Talkdesk Inc., Zoom Communications Inc. and Five9 Inc. Despite differences in platforms and deployment strategies, the conversations pointed toward what the analysts described as a common destination: end-to-end resolution backed by connected data, governance and measurable business outcomes.

The analysts warned that fragmented systems and stale knowledge can undermine AI accuracy, create repetitive interactions and accelerate flawed processes rather than fix them. As Kerravala put it, 'If you've got a broken process, you're going to get to that bad destination faster.' That concern underpins their recommendation to begin with a clearly bounded, high-value problem rather than attempting to redesign the entire customer journey at once. Those initial deployments still need architectures capable of connecting systems and reusing governance controls as deployments grow, they said.

AI adoption is also expected to reshape how contact centers divide work between people and digital agents. Human employees are expected to spend more time handling exceptions, emotionally sensitive situations and interactions requiring judgment, while AI takes on more standardized processes. Supervisors will need to manage that blended workforce differently, understanding when AI is working, when it is failing and how work should move between automated systems and people. Whether the shift toward resolution quality actually takes hold likely hinges on whether organizations treat governance as an ongoing operating practice and measure the improvements they set out to capture.