Contact center AI: Kerravala says old metrics miss the mark

The contact center has become a proving ground for AI because it combines high interaction volumes, heavy labor costs and visible moments of truth with customers. As Bob Laliberte of theCUBE Research put it, when something fails there the consequences are highly visible, and a poor AI interaction can increase customer effort, damage trust and hurt the brand.

The measurement frameworks the industry has relied on for decades are the first thing to break. Kerravala noted that legacy targets reward speed and containment even when a customer's problem goes unsolved, and that gap is pushing brands toward outcome-based scoring. Suppliers are repositioning accordingly, from Cisco Systems Inc.'s bet on AI agents across collaboration and customer workflows to a wave of voice agent launches, while companies including Five9 Inc. have leaned on implementation playbooks and voice AI agents to shorten time to value.

Yet the groundwork still sits with the customer. Both analysts point to high data quality, integrations, process redesign and knowledge management as the practical answers organizations should be listening for. Kerravala's read is that leading brands won't be the ones that simply automate the most, but those that turn AI into a better, more consistent set of outcomes while earning employee and customer trust. Whether that shift in metrics takes hold across the industry is likely to hinge on how quickly brands rebuild the knowledge foundations beneath their agents.