Q&A with Pete Lavache, Avaya CMO and Blair Pleasant, COMMfusion president and principal analyst

Avaya has been sharpening its focus for the future of customer and employee experiences. In this conversation, Blair Pleasant catches up with Pete Lavache, CMO of Avaya, to discuss where the company is focused, what’s different in the contact center space today, and how Avaya is approaching AI.

Blair: “You joined Avaya as CMO last November. Would you be able to tell me what the company’s been focused on since you joined and how your team is supporting those efforts?“

Pete: “Yes, it’s been a busy time. First and foremost, we’ve been laser focused on aligning and operationalizing the company to serve the largest and most complex enterprises and governments around the world—a market Avaya is best fit to serve. Centering the strategy and associated investments has helped us not only exhibit the necessary financial discipline required to baseline Avaya’s cost structure in a way that streamlined operations but, more importantly, helped build a much more agile organization.

I’ve also been partnering closely with Tony [Lama, our product leader] and David [Funck, our Chief Architect] on the product strategy targeting the enterprise. We are continually refining our approach to better align with the needs of that market, including how we service these customers and ensure that our solutions are personalized for organizations at scale. 

I’m very much a product-focused CMO, and the product aspect of this role was something that further piqued my interest about joining Avaya—the company has an incredible legacy as a technology pioneer. Additionally, the Edify acquisition and the potential to streamline and simplify operations and hyper-personalize experiences was a big draw. When combined with our core hallmarks of  reliability and scalability, which are things we do head and shoulders better than our competition, Avaya is able to meet customers where they are and enable them to go where they want to go.”  

Blair: "You’ve spent time in the contact center space before, then pivoted into cybersecurity— and now you’re back. Given that unique perspective, what’s different about the contact center industry today? What are you seeing now that maybe wasn’t as front and center before?"

Pete: “Honestly, it kind of feels like everything old is new again. The problems we were trying to solve years ago — they haven’t changed all that much. It's still about improving agent experience, customer satisfaction, and making things work better. But what has changed is the toolkit we have to address these problems.

As I mentioned, one of the things I was really excited about was the Edify acquisition. When I looked at that technology and how it fits into our space, it opened a whole new set of possibilities — especially around customers being able to go back and modernize the parts of their infrastructure that maybe they didn't get quite right the first time. You know, those original systems that were implemented years ago but never really delivered the value they were supposed to. Now, with AI-driven tools and more flexibility around deployment options – whether on-prem, cloud, or hybrid – we can help optimize workflows, make agents more efficient and ultimately streamline operations in a way that’s scalable and future-ready.

Whether its agent assists or sentiment analysis or voice analytics — things customers have been chasing forever — you’ve now got a whole new generation of tech to solve these problems in new ways. If you look at players in many of these spaces, they were desparately trying to transform those features into standalone companies when I left. Now, with the shifts in the market especially around AI, many of these companies are struggling because those features are finding their way back into platforms. This creates opportunities for companies like Avaya, because we can bring those capabilities back into the platform and do it in a way that’s scalable and reliable — what Avaya has always done well.

If you look at our competitors, everyone’s leading with AI in their boilerplates and overall marketing.  We’ve been intentional about not just jumping on buzzwords. We’re focused on practical AI — what value AI will drive for our customers. To me, this is a big shift we’ve made and one that presents both an opportunity and a responsibility for us  as business leaders. We can either let AI be shaped solely by scale, or we can design it to foster richer, smarter, and more trusted relationships between companies and their customers, and between organizations and their employees.”

Blair: “I’m glad you brought up AI — let’s talk about that. What’s different between Avaya’s AI strategy compared to what we’re seeing from others in your space?”

Pete: “The big thing with us is we’re not trying to become an AI company. Does Avaya have modernized AI features in our platform? Yeah, absolutely. But our approach is centered around the things that help reduce costs and frees agents to focus on more valuable, human interactions that result in better customer retention and loyalty. We’re not here pretending we invented AI or that we have the world’s most secret, best algorithm.

The reality is our approach is a lot more pragmatic. We’re building a platform that enables customers to use whatever technology, AI or otherwise, that they think is best for their business. That’s where we’re putting our investment — in giving them the flexibility and simplicity to integrate the tools that make sense for them. Whether that’s ChatGPT today, DeepSeek tomorrow, or something else entirely, we can support that without requiring armies of developers. We’re doing it through a drag-and-drop workflow interface that’s faster, easier, and doesn’t lock you into one vendor’s ecosystem.

When you think about AI-driven automation — that’s where this gets powerful. We’re helping reduce operational costs and free up agents to focus on more meaningful work. That’s the unlock. It’s not about building some mythical AI — it’s about making it usable, flexible, and valuable right now.”

Blair: “What do you say to those who write this off as just the next strategy and talking points from Avaya?”

Pete: “I’d say, look, I get the skepticism – but you are wrong if you read into what we are doing as business as usual.  And although I’m sure there were reasons for prior leadership’s decisions, let me be clear – this is a management team that’s perfectly comfortable building a fact-based plan and making the hard calls necessary to execute that plan. I’d also say, as evidence by the amount of spotlight we seek - we really don’t do talking points or believe trying to make ourselves a part of every conversation is an effective strategy.

The fact is, in the short run the market is going to believe what it wants.  All the while we’ll continue to stay maniacally focused on our core customers and markets and what delivers value for them. We’ll continue investing in and aligning our resources to focus on delivering that value in those markets.  And we’ll continue to explicitly implement broad based fiscal discipline and talent management to ensure we have the right workforce focused on the right opportunities. 

Funny thing is, if you heard that and didn’t know it was Avaya, you’d likely think that’s exactly how you’d want all the companies you do business with to operate.  And that’s who Avaya is.

I guess that’s my long way of saying we don’t obsess about the nay sayers. And the reason for that is simple. As a private company, with an execution focused management team, we have both the latitude and support to make the changes necessary to create a formidable competitor serving the needs of the largest and most complex requirements in this market and that's exactly what we are doing. 

Blair: “So, tell me what’s next for Avaya?”

Pete: “First off, we're going to focus on the customers we’re best equipped to serve and do so to the best of our ability. And the customers we’ve been speaking with are genuinely optimistic about what we are delivering. We’re laser-focused on execution—and the difference now is that we’re not just talking about what’s possible; we’re showing real software in action. Customers can see, touch, and test it, providing direct feedback that’s shaping where we go next.  

We’re continuing to build a durable, enterprise-focused business that helps our customers achieve their goals on their terms—not ours. Unlike the market, we’re not pushing a one-size-fits-all approach. Avaya remains committed to supporting on-prem, private, and sovereign cloud deployments because we understand that enterprise and government customers demand security, data sovereignty, privacy, and rich customization.

While many in the industry have moved toward multi-tenant public cloud solutions, the reality is that they don’t always meet stringent regulatory and operational requirements. With Avaya, customers have real choices—whether they need the flexibility of cloud, the control of on-prem, or a hybrid approach that balances both. In other words, we are committed to ensuring they have the right solutions to support their long-term success.