Five9 Analyst Summit 2025 - Putting the New CX into Action

Five9 hosted its annual analyst summit at the stunning Montage Resort in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The theme, “Putting the New CX into Action,” reflected the company’s focus on moving beyond vision to execution and results.

Laura Mackey, Global Head of Analyst and Influencer Relations, opened the event with three key takeaways she wanted attendees to leave with:

·      Five9 understands we’re in an evolving market driven by AI transformation

·      Five9 will capitalize on that change and is evolving to meet the market demands

·      Partners and customers will validate that Five9 is their trusted CX partner of choice

I spoke with Matt McGinnis, VP of Product Marketing, about the event, the customer and partner panels, and the major themes.

CEO and Chairman Mike Burkland emphasized that Five9’s vision is to “bring joy to CX” — delivering better customer experiences while also creating tangible business impact for brands and employees. He highlighted how AI disruption is reshaping the customer service landscape and explained that Five9 is transitioning from a cloud-native company to an AI-native one.

To achieve this, Five9 is taking deliberate steps to win through:

• Organizational and leadership evolution

• Go-to-market strategy evolution

• Financial and operational excellence

• Product innovation

“Our DNA is about delivering value to customers,” Burkland explained. “The New CX is about AI agents and human agents working hand-in-hand to provide better experiences at lower cost and with greater efficiency.” Importantly, Five9 is not focused on replacing humans with AI, but on enabling humans and AI to work together.

Differentiation is increasingly difficult as every CCaaS and CX vendor positions itself as AI-first. One of Five9’s strengths is its customer obsession. The company is recognized for white-glove service, strong professional services, and post-deployment support. On a customer panel, all three participants highlighted Five9’s reliability, stability, and integration capabilities. One BPO customer supporting thousands of agents even described Five9’s customer service team as the best in the industry.

I also spoke with Five9 President Andy Dignan, (who was previously the Chief Customer Officer and deserves much of the credit for the company’s services business and customer success delivery excellence) about Five9’s go-to-market approach and how the company helps customers achieve measurable AI outcomes. He explained how Five9 is combining its core CX strengths with AI innovation while also pursuing standalone AI capabilities. He also spoke about how Five9 enables its partners to differentiate themselves in the market.

The event itself was heavily AI-focused, with demonstrations of Five9’s AI agents and emerging agentic AI capabilities. Most of these details remain under NDA until the Five9 CX Summit in November, so stay tuned.

Ajay Awatramani, Chief Product Officer, described how Five9 is “Driving AI Transformation,” noting that the company is “playing a new game” in today’s market. Five9 is developing what it calls Agentic CX — a model where AI takes the lead, with humans stepping in when needed. This flips the current paradigm from “AI augmenting humans” to “humans augmenting AI.”

According to Awatramani, agentic AI will become the new frontline of CX, driving operational excellence that is:

• Memorable and personalized

• Consistent in brand voice

• Outcome-focused

• Tailored for specific industries

Five9 plans to introduce new products and solutions in this area, many of which will be formally unveiled at the November CX Summit.

At his first analyst summit since becoming Chief Revenue Officer, Matt Tuckness discussed the need to retool to focus on outcomes rather than migration, to drive efficiency and a better CX, while bringing joy to customers. Five9 is changing how it provides support and works with partners, with a new go-to-market model, as well as a new pricing model.

In this video, Tuckness discusses what makes Five9 special (hint: it’s the people), and its opportunity to help customers in this new AI world. He also discusses the company’s services and support teams and how the company guides customers to their desired outcomes. Tuckness notes that Five9’s differentiation is about its people, providing the care and trust customers are looking for.

Closing Thoughts

Five9 made clear that it has both a vision for the next stage of CX and a growing team of AI experts to execute it. Through demos, the company showed how new AI capabilities can transform customer journeys, improve agent performance, and enhance management insights. While some innovations are more mature than others, the company has a clear roadmap for where it’s headed.

The company remains singularly focused on ensuring customer success, and customers validated Five9’s strong focus on success, while  partners reinforced their trust in the company.

AI transformation continues to create challenges – and opportunities – for CCaaS/CX players in the rush to evolve to keep up with rapid technological changes. In addition to the mega-trends impacting all vendors, Five9 will be undergoing leadership changes as it searches for a new CEO. If the company continues on its current path, it may truly deliver on its promise to “bring joy to CX.”