NiCE Analyst Summit 2025 – Orchestrating the AI-first CX Era

NiCE held its Analyst Summit in beautiful Vienna, Austria—its first major event under a new executive team that includes CEO Scott Russell, CMO Michelle Cooper, President of Product and Technology Jeff Comstock, and Phil Heltweg, formerly CEO of Cognigy and now Chief AI Officer of NiCE Cognigy.

As expected, much of the discussion centered on AI, particularly AI Agents and orchestration.

A New Strategic Vision

Scott Russell opened the event by outlining NiCE’s strategy of taking an “aggressive approach to innovation, running with speed, and being a business that’s great to do business with.” NiCE has long been recognized for its innovation, and Russell made it clear that this focus will continue—now with an even faster pace.

He also emphasized NiCE’s goal of being an AI-first CX platform, positioning the company as a leader in “the AI-first CX era.” Notably, the term CCaaS was used sparingly—NiCE now refers to its offering as a Customer Engagement Platform (CEP), reflecting a broader vision that goes beyond traditional contact center services.

Product & Technology Direction

Just a few weeks into his new role, Jeff Comstock shared insights from his time leading Microsoft’s CRM group and building its contact center offering. He explained why he joined NiCE, noting that his CRM background gave him deep appreciation for the “point of interaction and engagement with the customer”—both self-service and human-assisted—and the value of the data that fuels those interactions in order to do “magical things.” In the Agentic AI era, NiCE plans to accelerate innovation in its agentic framework and orchestration layer, enabling seamless fulfillment across the enterprise.

I spoke with Comstock about his role at NiCE and what he’s most excited about.

To summarize the key themes and messages of the event, I spoke with Andy Traba, VP of Product Marketing, who discussed what NiCE means by AI-first for CX, as well as the company’s focus beyond the front office to the mid and back office, and the role of orchestration.

Cognigy: The Star of the Show

Cognigy took center stage, with analysts getting a closer look at its role in NiCE’s AI strategy. Heltweg led an engaging session on “Leading the Future of AI-Powered Experiences: Unlocking the Power of One AI Platform.” He traced Cognigy’s evolution from conversational AI to Agentic AI, sharing real-world customer examples that demonstrated measurable impact.

Cognigy’s Agentic AI platform enables organizations to create highly flexible, adaptive AI agents and orchestrate them at scale, characterized by being:

·       Multimodal – engaging via chat, voice, and device features (e.g., camera or GPS).

·       Connected – integrated with the broader enterprise ecosystem.

·       Low-code – enabling rapid time to market.

Not every use case requires LLM-powered agents, and Cognigy offers hybrid AI Agents that combine rule-based AI and LLMs. Depending on the interaction, an agent can start with an LLM and transition to a structured, rule-based workflow.

Demonstrations showcased how easy it is to use AI Agent Studio for building agents, as well as the AI Agent Simulator to test the AI Agents through thousands of conversations.

Through its Voice Gateway integration layer, Cognigy connects with leading contact center platforms, including Avaya, Genesys, 8x8, and RingCentral. Although Cognigy will continue as a standalone product, some legacy partnerships—such as with Genesys—are ending, as evidenced by its removal from the Genesys AppFoundry marketplace.

I spoke with Alan Ranger, VP Marketing of NiCE Cognigy, to discuss Cognigy’s differentiation, as well as the synergies with NiCE.

From Insights to Action

There were several demos, but the one that got the most rave reviews was Automated Insights. This solution analyzes customer interaction data to identify key topics and automation opportunities, then feeds them back into Cognigy to rapidly build AI agents. What differentiates Automated Insights is its ability to move beyond analytics—providing actionable recommendations such as coaching opportunities and knowledge-base creation, transforming insights directly into outcomes.

To provide more information on Automated Insights, I spoke with Carmit DiAndrea, head of AI Data Management.

Orchestration

As mentioned, orchestration was a hot topic. Tim Harris, VP & GM, Workflow Orchestration, gave an enlightening presentation on orchestrating workflows, noting that:

·      Automation delivers full value only when it is intelligently orchestrated

·      Orchestration connects customer intent seamlessly through to fulfillment

·      The future isn’t AI or humans, it’s both working together

In this video, Tim Harris discusses Interaction Orchestration, which involves human agents and AI agents. He explains workflow orchestration, as well as how NiCE is orchestrating between front- and back-office specialists, and expanding beyond customer service to sales and marketing as it relates to CX.

The Role of Data

David Gustafson emphasized the importance of a strong AI-ready data foundation. He outlined what makes for effective data infrastructure—hint: a lot of high-quality data—and described how NiCE provides an AI-ready data foundation with the largest CX data set that has the highest fidelity, is dynamically applied, open and extensible, and actionable and observable.

The Future Workforce

The evolving workforce will comprise humans, augmented human agents, and AI agents—working together in increasingly complex environments. As a leader in Workforce Engagement Management (WEM), NiCE is extending its expertise to accommodate this new dynamic. Omri Hayner, head of Workforce Automation (title TBD), discussed how the rise of AI and augmented agents requires a reimagined approach to WEM. NiCE is expanding WEM capabilities to the middle and back office, enabling functions such as:

·       Accurate scheduling in blended human/AI environments

·       Enhancing ticket interaction quality

·       Empowering back-office supervisors

Hayner noted that Agentic AI is redefining the workforce, and NiCE’s AI-first WEM will fundamentally reshape CX practices by supporting the entire customer journey across the enterprise.

Key Takeaways

One of the highlights of the summit was the openness of NiCE’s leaders. The executives and product leaders didn’t just present their vision for NiCE – they listened – truly listened – to the analysts and our feedback. The company understands that while it has led the CCaaS market, there are new challenges and opportunities in the AI-driven CX landscape. Scott Russell and his team were highly engaged, reflecting a genuine commitment to transparency and collaboration.

NiCE’s ambition is to extend beyond customer service into sales and marketing, uniting the front, middle, and back office into a cohesive Customer Engagement Platform for the AI-first era. While this broader expansion is still in development, the company’s direction is clear—and I expect its messaging to tighten and sharpen as new customers and use cases emerge.

With its new leadership team and the infusion of Cognigy’s AI expertise, NiCE is entering a period of transformation. Expect more partnerships, stronger international expansion (a personal focus for Russell), and a refreshed brand under Michelle Cooper’s guidance.

NiCE has ambitious goals—but its history of innovation, combined with renewed leadership energy, positions it well for success. From its roots in voice recording and workforce management to its evolution into a leading CCaaS provider, NiCE is now setting its sights on leading the AI-first CX era with its Customer Engagement Platform.

It’s an exciting time for NiCE—and worth watching closely as the new leadership’s vision unfolds.