Zoom held its Zoom Perspectives analyst conference at the Ritz-Carlton Half Moon Bay, giving analysts the opportunity to hear about the company’s latest AI developments. The central theme of the event was “conversation to completion.” It's not about meetings any longer - it's about how conversations kick things off, but the real work is in how AI is used to deliver outcomes, completed tasks, and resolutions. A conversation may start in a meeting, on a phone call, in a custom

Mitel’s introduction of Mitel WX (Workforce Experience) signals a meaningful shift in how enterprise communications are built and used. Instead of focusing primarily on meetings and messaging for desk-based employees, WX is designed as a communications framework that embeds real-time, voice-first interactions directly into day-to-day workflows. It brings together frontline, mobile, office, and contact center workers into a single, role-aware experience, while supporting flexi

Enterprise Connect 2026 has come and gone—and as always, it was a whirlwind. I spent nearly all of my time in vendor meetings and recording video interviews, attending only a handful of sessions in addition to the one I moderated. Unsurprisingly, the event centered on AI—particularly agentic AI—including virtual agents, workflow and agent studios, analytics, testing, and more. Below are the key themes that emerged across conversations.   Key Themes The word of the week: “vibe

RingCentral has had a busy year, with new products, ongoing innovation, and several leadership additions. At the company’s 2026 Analyst Summit in Scottsdale, Arizona, analysts received an update on RingCentral’s business momentum and a preview of upcoming announcements—some of which will be formally introduced at Enterprise Connect. In her first year as President and COO Kira Makagon, opened the event by framing the broader industry shift. She described the current moment as

At its Zoho Day analyst event in Austin, TX, Zoho marked several key milestones. The company celebrated its 30th anniversary and reported more than one million paying customers and 150 million users. For a privately-held company with a long-standing emphasis on engineering over marketing, these figures reflect sustained growth at scale. Strategic Context Vijay Sundaram, Chief Strategy Officer, outlined the trends shaping Zoho’s strategy: AI has moved from experimentation to o

Zoho One, Zoho’s flagship suite, has recently undergone a makeover, offering simplicity and unification. Rather than adding another set of features to an already broad portfolio, Zoho has rethought how work actually happens across its more than 50 applications—and redesigned the experience around unified integrations, context, workflows, and data. Announced in November 2025, the new Zoho One reflects a shift away from app-centric workflows toward a platform-centric model that

As analysts, we’re always asked for our year-end predictions, so I thought I would turn the tables around and ask the vendors for their predictions. Here are some of the key trends and predictions for 2026 from various business communication vendors.     8x8 – The platform becomes the value According to 8x8 CEO Sam Wilson, “The market finally stops treating business communications as a smorgasbord of disconnected products. UCaaS, CCaaS, and CPaaS served their purpose as label

As we wrap up the year, I thought it would be fun to hand out my own set of industry awards. Take these with a grain of salt—many are just for entertainment. Most reflect my experiences and insights from various analyst events and countless vendor interactions throughout the year. If you want to nominate a vendor for a category, drop it in the comments or send me a message.   Best Marketing Ingenuity – 8x8 CMO Bruno Bertini delivered a bold rebrand that literally breaks out o

At its Analyst Summit in Savannah, GA, Talkdesk highlighted its new platform—and the market category it hopes to define: Customer Experience Automation (CXA). As organizations look to automate the entire customer journey, not just customer service interactions, Talkdesk sees CXA as the platform to orchestrate and optimize CX end-to-end, both before and after live interactions. Talkdesk positions CXA both as a new market category and as its multi-agent automation platform, des

Wildix held its first analyst summit in beautiful Venice—a fitting location, since the company was founded in Trentino, Italy, by brothers Steve and Dimitri Osler. While most unified communications vendors originated in the U.S. and later expanded to Europe, Wildix’s roots are firmly European, and now the company has set its sights on expanding across the U.S. market. The event’s theme—“Masks Come Off”—was appropriate. Wildix used the occasion to “unmask” itself, introducing

On our latest BCStrategies podcast, we did a recap of the recent NiCE 2025 Analyst Summit, held in Vienna. This was NiCE's first analyst summit with their new leadership team, and there was a lot to take in on many fronts. Along with Nicolas de Kouchkovsky and Tom Brannen, Jon Arnold moderated the discussion, and we shared our top takeaways from the event.