Unified Communications Archives — MarTech Series https://martechseries.com/category/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/ Marketing Technology Insights Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:56:39 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.8.5 https://martechseries.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/cropped-martech_series_logo-1-4-32x32.png Unified Communications Archives — MarTech Series https://martechseries.com/category/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/ 32 32 Nylas Launches Professional Services Program to Help Product Teams Ship Faster https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/nylas-launches-professional-services-program-to-help-product-teams-ship-faster/ Wed, 29 Apr 2026 07:56:39 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=399353

Nylas Logo

New onboarding packages and technical services give customers a guided path from integration to production — led by Chief Customer Success Officer Jo-Ann Chiam

Nylas announced the launch of its Professional Services program — a structured set of onboarding packages and technical services designed to help product teams reach production faster and with fewer integration setbacks.

The program is the first major initiative led by Jo-Ann Chiam, who joined Nylas earlier this year as Chief Customer Success Officer. Chiam spent more than 20 years leading Customer Success organizations across SaaS companies, most recently as Chief Client Officer at AudienceView, where she built and scaled global onboarding, delivery, and support organizations. At Nylas, she leads the Customer Success, Technical Support, and Professional Services teams.

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“Nylas processes more than 35 billion API transactions a month. That scale only matters if customers can build on it successfully,” said Jeff Koets, CEO of Nylas. “The Professional Services program is a direct investment in that outcome. Jo-Ann has spent her career building teams where customer outcomes are the metric that matters, not just at renewal time, but from day one.”

Nylas gives product teams a single integration for email, calendar, contacts, scheduling, and meeting intelligence — normalized across Gmail, Microsoft, and 250+ other providers. But access to reliable communications infrastructure is only part of the equation. Teams still need to navigate provider OAuth requirements, configure multi-environment authentication, design webhook architectures, and pass Google verification audits before they can ship.

The Professional Services program addresses exactly those challenges. It provides structured, expert-guided engagement across two offering types. For teams working through a full integration, Nylas offers three onboarding programs scaled to deployment complexity. Programs range from 30 to 90 days, and each includes a dedicated engineer, a mutual action plan, and a full documentation handoff at close. For teams that need targeted help on a specific challenge, Nylas offers à la carte sessions covering Google OAuth verification, provider OAuth app creation, architecture and workflow review, webhook best practices, and go-to-market strategy. A Proof of Concept engagement is also available for teams that need measurable validation before committing to an annual or multi-year agreement.

“The teams building on Nylas are shipping products that depend on communications data being accurate, normalized, and available in real time. What I’ve seen too often in this industry is companies treating implementation support as an afterthought, something customers figure out on their own after the contract is signed. Coding assistants can generate an integration, but they can’t walk you through Google OAuth verification or absorb a breaking API update from Microsoft. We built the Professional Services program to close that gap, so teams reach production with confidence, not frustration,” said Jo-Ann Chiam, Chief Customer Success Officer at Nylas.

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AI Simultaneous Interpretation Platform ‘TransGull’ Launches Enterprise Solution ‘TransGull Enterprise’ https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/ai-simultaneous-interpretation-platform-transgull-launches-enterprise-solution-transgull-enterprise/ Mon, 27 Apr 2026 08:37:17 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=399205 Logo

Breaking language barriers across organizations and accelerating global business growth

Say Wow, Inc. announced the official launch of its enterprise-focused AI translation and communication platform, “TransGull Enterprise,” on April 24, 2026.

Centered on real-time simultaneous interpretation, TransGull Enterprise integrates video translation and text translation capabilities to enable seamless multilingual communication in global business environments.
Through a unified workspace, organizations can manage teams efficiently, with centralized billing, shared data, and collaborative usage—reducing communication costs and accelerating international expansion.

■ Background

As globalization continues to accelerate, businesses increasingly face multilingual communication needs in their daily operations.
Traditional human translation presents limitations in cost, speed, and scalability, making it difficult to support high-frequency, everyday communication scenarios.

TransGull starts with translation—the most fundamental and universal need—and is building an AI-powered communication layer for global interaction. This approach enables organizations to expand internationally and operate more effectively across language boundaries.

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■ Product Capabilities

TransGull Enterprise is built around the core need of “communication,” unifying three high-frequency scenarios: meetings, video content, and everyday reading.

In meeting scenarios, the platform leverages real-time speech recognition, large language model translation, and speech synthesis to deliver instant translation and audio playback. It supports major platforms such as Zoom, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams, and can also be used in offline, face-to-face conversations. Continuous contextual understanding improves translation accuracy throughout ongoing discussions, enabling natural multilingual communication.

For content distribution and internal training, businesses can quickly generate multilingual subtitles from existing video materials and export bilingual subtitle files. This significantly reduces the cost of producing multilingual content for both internal and external use.

In daily work environments, users can simply select text on webpages, documents, or emails to translate instantly—without switching tools—streamlining information access and minimizing workflow disruption.

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At the organizational level, TransGull Enterprise provides workspace-based management, allowing teams to collaborate efficiently by sharing translation records and related files.

The platform adopts a flexible, usage-based pricing model with no seat fees, no subscription fees, and no fixed costs. Businesses only pay for what they use, lowering the barrier to adoption.
This model is well suited for small and medium-sized teams to get started without budget pressure, while also enabling large enterprises to run pilot programs and scale based on real-world results.

Additionally, centralized billing and automated invoice generation simplify internal financial management.

■ Future Outlook

TransGull Enterprise will continue to enhance enterprise-grade capabilities, improve translation quality and system reliability, and expand into additional use cases.
The long-term vision is to become a core AI communication infrastructure supporting global business operations.

■ Key Features

· AI-powered simultaneous interpretation (for online meetings and offline communication)
· Video translation (automatic multilingual subtitles with bilingual export support)
· Selection-based translation (instant translation for web pages, documents, and emails)
· Workspace management (multi-user collaboration and shared data)
· Enterprise billing (no seat fees, no subscriptions, pay-as-you-go, automated invoicing)

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8×8 Launches Retail Nationwide in the UK to Close the Communication Gap Costing Stores Sales https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/8x8-launches-retail-nationwide-in-the-uk-to-close-the-communication-gap-costing-stores-sales/ Tue, 21 Apr 2026 09:11:39 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398871

8x8, Inc. Logo

Mobile-First UC Offering Designed for Shared Devices, Shift-Based Teams, and Multi-Location Retail Operations Launches for the UK at Retail Technology Show 2026

Solving the problem of communication tools being designed for desk-based workers, not mobile retail workers, 8×8, Inc., a leading global business communications platform provider, is using its presence at the Retail Technology Show 2026 to make its UK debut of Retail Nationwide — a unified communications offering built specifically for how store teams actually work.

Retail Nationwide addresses a structural mismatch that costs UK retailers daily. Most enterprise communication tools were designed for office staff with assigned phones and fixed desks. Retail doesn’t work that way. When a call comes in, the nearest available person should be able to answer it – but most current setups aren’t configured for that. The result is missed calls, inconsistent responsiveness, and IT teams managing the fallout across dozens or hundreds of locations.

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Retail Nationwide is built around how stores actually operate. Calls ring across all connected devices, whoever is available answers. Configuration is standardised across locations, reducing provisioning time when new stores open.

Each licence works with a desk phone plus up to five shared mobile or tablet devices, so the store environment is covered without requiring individual licences for every staff member.

“UK retailers are managing more complexity with leaner teams than ever with staff helping customers, dealing with online orders, trying to answer queries across multiple channels, and so much more,” said Michelle Kelly, Retail Expert at 8×8, Inc. “The communication infrastructure many stores are running on wasn’t built for that. It was built for a world where everyone has a desk and phone and has been shoehorned into retail, resulting in a poor employee and customer experience. Retail Nationwide changes all that and has a pricing model that reflects the retail reality.”

8×8 will be attending Retail Technology Show 2026 alongside channel partner Global Telecom Networks (GTN).

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“What we hear consistently from UK retailers is that their frontline teams are difficult to reach and expensive to equip,” said Vipool Umaria, Chief Operations Officer at Global Telecom Networks. “The licensing model alone creates friction — staff turnover, licences go unused, IT has to keep pace with store changes. Retail Nationwide cuts through all of that. It’s a model built around how retail actually staffs and operates and that attention to detail in the industry is why we are working with 8×8.”

Retail-specific solutions designed to drive measurable outcomes

In addition to Retail Nationwide, 8×8 will showcase retail-focused solutions that help businesses increase conversion, improve post-purchase experiences, and build lasting customer relationships, including:

  • 8×8 Aftersale Assist helps retailers resolve issues faster after purchase by using AI-powered self-service and one-way video support, improving customer satisfaction while reducing avoidable returns and support costs.
  • 8×8 Sales Assist helps sales teams engage customers more effectively with AI-driven insights and guided conversations, improving efficiency, increasing personalization, and driving repeat purchases and loyalty.

8×8 will also demonstrate its core retail communication capabilities, including MDM integration for large-scale device management, support for shared handheld devices with simplified store-associate onboarding, centralized remote configuration for consistent multi-site communication, and a dedicated managed version of the 8×8 Work app optimized for MDM-based deployments.

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The Bulleit Group Named One of the 100 Best PR Firms in the United States — A Specialist in AI, Startups, Robotics, and Frontier Technology https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/the-bulleit-group-named-one-of-the-100-best-pr-firms-in-the-united-states-a-specialist-in-ai-startups-robotics-and-frontier-technology/ Mon, 20 Apr 2026 11:12:20 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398793 BG Logo (1).png

A PR firm specializing in AI companies, startups, robotics, and frontier technology.

PRovoke Media has named The Bulleit Group as one of the 100 Best Agencies in the United States. This ranking evaluates public relations firms across consumer, healthcare, financial communications, public affairs, and technology.

The Bulleit Group is a narrative systems and strategic communications consultancy specializing in communications for artificial intelligence companies, technology startups, robotics platforms, transportation and logistics companies, and venture-backed firms operating in emerging markets.

As coverage of AI, robotics, and emerging technologies expands across outlets like Bloomberg, Forbes, and The Information, the gap between what companies build and how those systems are understood has become more visible. As enterprise adoption accelerates, buyers and investors are placing greater weight on how companies communicate capability, risk, and reliability.

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Founded in 2012, The Bulleit Group has established itself as a specialized partner for high-growth and frontier technology companies seeking to shape market perception, improve media visibility, and increase discoverability across AI platforms.

In 2024, the firm restructured its operating model to focus on lean, senior-led teams supported by AI systems for message testing, trend analysis, and content development. This approach enables faster execution and more precise narrative control, while maintaining a direct connection between communications strategy and business outcomes.

“We believe communications is becoming a system, not a series of campaigns,” said Kyle Arteaga, Founder and CEO of The Bulleit Group. “It is no longer only about media coverage. Companies need to be understood, surfaced, and recommended by human and AI systems. That requires a new model.”

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Selected outcomes across AI, robotics, and startup communications:

  • Fauna Robotics launched its humanoid platform and was acquired by Amazon within two months
  • Civitai reduced negative sentiment by 94% while expanding its creator base to more than six million users
  • LVK Logistics achieved national industry visibility within 50 days of launch
  • Multiple Bulleit Group clients were acquired by Amazon and Meta during active engagements with the firm

These outcomes reflect communications challenges where the category itself is still being defined, requiring precision in how companies are understood by media, investors, and the public.

Where The Bulleit Group is typically engaged:

This includes company launches, funding announcements, acquisitions, and periods of heightened regulatory or public scrutiny, where narrative clarity directly impacts business outcomes.

How the firm operates:

The Bulleit Group has developed proprietary frameworks, including its AI Risk/Reward Ladder and Visibility Flywheel, designed to align communications with technical reality, manage downside risk, and systematically improve discoverability across media, search, and AI-driven platforms.

Who The Bulleit Group works with:

The Bulleit Group works with venture-backed startups, growth-stage companies, serial founders, and venture capital firms across artificial intelligence, robotics, aerospace, transportation and logistics, fintech, and developer tools.

Current clients include Cylake and Impulse Space. Past clients include Google, LinkedIn, Airbus, Bloomberg Beta, P&G Studio, Zoox, Flexport, Veo Robotics, and CTRL-labs.

Companies typically engage The Bulleit Group after early traction creates pressure to communicate more precisely with enterprise buyers, regulators, and investors, or after working with larger agencies that lack technical depth in emerging technology categories.

PRovoke Media will select 20 agencies from the Top 100 list as finalists for Agency of the Year at the North American SABRE Awards on May 5.

“This recognition reflects the clients and partners building alongside us,” Arteaga added. “We are focused on what comes next.”

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Sinch named a leader in IDC MarketScape for Communications Engagement Platforms https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/sinch-named-a-leader-in-idc-marketscape-for-communications-engagement-platforms/ Fri, 17 Apr 2026 07:06:43 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398698 Sinch (Sinch AB (publ)) has been named a Leader in the inaugural IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communications Engagement Platforms 2026 Vendor Assessment*- the first analyst evaluation to assess vendors across the converging landscape of Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS), Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), and Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS).

Until now, enterprise buyers evaluating communications technology have faced a fragmented analyst landscape, with CPaaS, UCaaS, and CCaaS assessed separately, as though buying decisions happened in silos. The IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communications Engagement Platforms 2026 is the first evaluation to reflect how enterprises actually buy, assessing vendors across the full converged stack in a single framework. For CIOs, CX leaders and contact center decision-makers, that means a clearer and more complete view of which vendors can deliver across the entire engagement lifecycle — not just one layer of it.

We believe being named a Leader in this inaugural edition carries particular weight: it helps define the benchmark before the category matures and signals to buyers that Sinch was evaluated and against the market’s broadest definition from day one.

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“Sinch has a broad and deep portfolio of cloud communications services for both business and service provider platforms,” said Denise Lund, Research Vice President WW Telecom and Unified Communications, IDC IDC. “A key differentiator is Sinch’s AI-native orchestration layer, which enables context-aware, compliant and outcome-driven customer interactions across messaging, voice, and email. Combined with deep carrier relationships, global compliance expertise, and decades of experience operating at scale, Sinch provides the trusted foundation enterprises rely on when security and reliability are non-negotiable.”

According to the report, “A key differentiator is Sinch’s AI-native orchestration layer that enables context-aware, compliant, and outcome-driven customer interactions across messaging, voice, and email. Its comprehensive portfolio addresses the needs of distinctive business sizes and user groups, ranging from an advanced API suite for developers to specific use cases such as marketing campaigns, customer updates, identity and verification, and customer service. Its sweet spot is in the midmarket and large enterprise segment across a variety of verticals, with a differentiated services stack for the telco segment.”

“Customer engagement is becoming more connected, intelligent and global,” said Laurinda Pang, CEO of Sinch. “The convergence of conversational messaging, voice and AI is not a trend — it is a restructuring of how enterprises engage with customers. We believe being recognized as a Leader in the inaugural evaluation of this combined landscape validates that Sinch is the infrastructure this shift runs on.”

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Sinch’s communications engagement platform includes:

  • a Conversation API unifying more than 14 messaging channels with orchestration and intelligent routing,

  • a global email platform delivering high deliverability at enterprise scale,

  • a carrier-grade voice network supporting programmable voice and AI-driven voice experiences, and

  • a unified Verification API enabling secure authentication and fraud prevention.

Together, these capabilities form a trusted infrastructure layer that allows enterprises — and the AI agents working alongside them — to engage with customers with intelligence, reliability and global reach.

This recognition builds on Sinch’s continued analyst momentum. In 2025, Sinch was also named a Leader in the IDC MarketScape: Worldwide Communications Platform-as-a-Service (CPaaS) Vendor Assessment (doc #US52039625, February 2025), marking the third time in recent years that the company has achieved this distinction.

Sinch powers communications for more than 200,000 businesses worldwide, enabling hundreds of billions of interactions each year across messaging, voice and email. The company connects enterprises with customers in more than 190 countries through more than 600 direct carrier connections.

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Highwire Launches AcroAI, the Most Advanced Agentic AI Platform for Marketing and Communications Clients https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/highwire-launches-acroai-the-most-advanced-agentic-ai-platform-for-marketing-and-communications-clients/ Fri, 17 Apr 2026 06:49:18 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398690

Highwire Logo

Innovative platform amplifies Highwire’s expert counsel, turning complexity into competitive advantage

Highwire, a strategic marketing and communications agency at the intersection of innovation and industry, announced the launch of AcroAI, ​an agentic AI platform that gives marketing and communications leaders real-time strategic insights to drive measurable business impact securely and at scale.

Highwire Launches AcroAI, the Most Advanced Agentic AI Platform for Marketing and Communications Clients: Innovative platform amplifies Highwire’s expert counsel, turning complexity into competitive advantage

AcroAI puts agentic AI and real-time collaboration directly into clients’ hands for the first time while giving Highwire’s expert practitioners the ability to scale with strategic judgment, sector-specific methodologies, and proven workflows that have defined the agency’s highest-impact programs. It extends Highwire’s existing suite of AI-powered client offerings, including the Highwire AI Index for AEO and GEO and advanced measurement suites.

“We’ve built Highwire’s AI strategy around a core belief that the right combination of human expertise and artificial intelligence transforms teams into indispensable business partners,” said Carol Carrubba, President of Innovation at Highwire. “Combining our firm’s talent with AcroAI gives our clients powerful leverage to be the most prepared, most creative strategist in any conversation.”

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Built for the full marketing and communications workflow

AcroAI covers the complete range of marketing and communications operations, deploying coordinated “fleets” of specialized agents trained on a firm’s own knowledge, methodologies and brand standards. These agents aggregate intelligence from more than 100 data sources to:

  • Monitor competitive and market signals in real time;
  • Optimize content for both SEO and generative engine optimization (GEO); and
  • Develop and execute multi-channel campaigns with consistent brand voice across every channel where audiences discover, evaluate and act.

The platform’s multi-model architecture dynamically selects the best AI model for each specific task, optimizing for both speed and output quality. Integration with existing tools, including SharePoint, Google Drive, HubSpot, Slack, and Microsoft Teams, means teams can deploy AcroAI in their current workflows without disruption.

Enterprise security and compliance at the core

AcroAI carries SOC 2 Type 2 certification and runs on Google Cloud Platform. The platform features single sign-on, full encryption for data in transit and at rest, and a strict data-handling policy that guarantees client data is never used to train public AI models. Teams maintain human oversight across all agents and workflows, giving leadership teams the transparency and control that complex, regulated environments demand.

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Powered by practitioners, amplified by algorithms

Unlike generic AI platforms that rely on constant direction, AcroAI agents are trained by seasoned agency professionals, so every output matches organizational standards and brand voice without sacrificing the institutional depth that senior audiences expect.

The platform supports the business impact of marketing communications teams across three dimensions:

  1. Stronger market differentiation through repeatable narratives that reinforce brand authority over time;
  2. Productivity gains from automating time-consuming desk research and repetitive tasks; and
  3. Higher-quality, more consistent deliverables that embed a firm’s perspective into every output.

“We built AcroAI because we saw the gap between what AI promises and what marketing and communications teams actually need,” said Jason Mayde, Chief Technology Officer at Highwire. “The platform runs on proven agentic architecture with the governance, security, and brand standards that regulated industries require. AI that operates at that level of institutional specificity becomes a competitive advantage for the teams running it.”

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Digital Insure Selects MHC to Modernize Customer Communications and Support Operational Resilience https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/marketing-automation/digital-insure-selects-mhc-to-modernize-customer-communications-and-support-operational-resilience/ Thu, 16 Apr 2026 07:02:02 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398609 MHC, a global provider of AI-powered SaaS solutions for document and payment automation, announced that Digital Insure, a digital-first insurance organization in Europe, has selected MHC NorthStar Customer Communications Management (CCM) as part of its broader technology modernization initiative.

Digital Insure is replacing its homegrown legacy system for document generation with MHC’s enterprise-grade CCM software, hosted in its private Amazon cloud. The move supports greater operational resilience, regulatory compliance readiness, and day-to-day efficiency for operational teams.

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Modern Implementation with Regional Expertise

To support this initiative, MHC NorthStar CCM is being implemented with the templates, data model, supporting assets, and workflow needed to support a modern, governed communications environment. Dialog Group supports the engagement as an authorized reseller of MHC, bringing local delivery, migration, integration expertise, and experience supporting EU regulatory requirements such as the European Accessibility Act (EAA) and the Digital Operational Resilience Act (DORA).

Why Digital Insure Selected MHC

MHC was selected over two competing solutions that were also trialed. One alternative was viewed as more complex to implement and operate, while another was seen as too limited to support core application needs. MHC NorthStar CCM stood out for its combination of enterprise-grade capability, day-to-day usability, and fit for regulated communications in the European market, including support for EAA and DORA compliance.

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MHC’s security and governance practices, including SOC 2 Type II, helped validate the platform’s enterprise-ready foundation. In evaluation sessions, operational stakeholders confirmed that MHC NorthStar CCM was intuitive for non-technical teams, helping reduce adoption risk during a critical transformation program. In addition, the solution’s pre-composition accessibility approach, combined with Dialog Group’s regional delivery, migration, and integration expertise, further reinforced confidence that the solution could support Digital Insure’s accessibility and resilience requirements in the European market.

“We’re proud to support Digital Insure as it modernizes its communications environment for a more resilient and regulated future,” said Mark Petoskey, Chief Sales Officer at MHC. “This engagement reflects the need for solutions that combine enterprise capability, usability, and governance in a way that helps operational teams move with greater speed and confidence.”

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8×8 Brings Agentic AI Natively to the 8×8 Platform for CX https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/8x8-brings-agentic-ai-natively-to-the-8x8-platform-for-cx/ Tue, 14 Apr 2026 13:57:47 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398502

8x8, Inc. Logo

8×8 AI Studio, now in early availability, lets any team build and deploy next-gen AI agents on the 8×8 Platform for CX through natural language conversation

8×8, Inc. , a leading global business communications platform provider, introduces 8×8 AI Studio, a native AI development environment that lets any team build, test, and deploy AI agents directly on the 8×8 Platform for CX using natural language instructions. 8×8 AI Studio is now in early availability for 8×8 customers.

Most organizations trying to deploy AI run into the same set of obstacles: specialist developer requirements, expensive professional services, long implementation projects, and tools that sit outside the platforms they already operate. The result is a persistent gap between AI ambition and AI execution. 8×8 AI Studio is built to close it.

Nearly three in four CX leaders prefer to build their own AI agents rather than buy off-the-shelf solutions, according to the Metrigy Customer Experience Optimization 2025-26 report, citing trust and domain expertise as the primary reasons. 8×8 AI Studio is designed for exactly that preference. Because it is native to the 8×8 platform, customers build on infrastructure they already trust, with voice channels, digital routing, interaction data, and telephony pre-integrated from day one. No new vendor. No new contract. No additional infrastructure layer to stand up or configure before the first agent goes live.

“Many companies — especially mid-sized ones — have held back deploying AI agents because of the cost of specialized developers and months of integration work. 8×8 built AI Studio natively on infrastructure its customers already operate so no intricate integration is required,” said Sheila McGee-Smith, President & Principal Analyst at McGee-Smith Analytics. “A business user can describe what they want an agent to do in natural language, and the native Builder creates it, including the ability to take real action such as scheduling appointments or filing tickets. This combination of accessibility for non-technical teams and the flexibility to expand into agentic workflows on a single platform is what will allow companies to transform AI from a concept to repeatable outcomes.”

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AI that ships with the infrastructure

Unlike legacy conversational AI solutions, 8×8 AI Studio comes with a Builder that lets any user describe what they need in plain language and get from concept to a live AI agent across voice and digital channels in minutes rather than months, without professional services or specialist developers.

Dozens of customers across more than 15 verticals are already running hundreds of agents in early availability, putting agents into production across inbound routing, outbound follow-up, sales qualification, scheduling, internal helpdesk triage, and individual employee productivity workflows.

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“8×8 AI Studio is not an AI layer sitting on top of a communications platform, it’s AI embedded in the infrastructure itself,” said Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, Inc. “The LLM has direct access to real-time voice data, network telemetry, and the full interaction context that external tools typically cannot access. That direct access also eliminates the transcription intermediaries responsible for the latency and drop-offs that destroy the natural conversation experience on older architectures. That is what separates AI that demos well from AI that holds up at production scale.”

What teams are building

Organizations in early availability are deploying 8×8 AI Studio agents across a range of operational use cases:

  • Always-on inbound coverage. AI agents handle intake, identity verification, call routing, and multi-location reception around the clock – with business-hours awareness built in.
  • Proactive outbound engagement. Outbound agents confirm appointments, follow up on open service requests, and collect structured data from customers without adding headcount.
  • Sales qualification and CRM handoff. AI agents capture inbound leads, run qualification workflows, and hand off to CRM with live Salesforce integration, enabling sales teams to pick up conversations that are already qualified.
  • Internal support resolution. Helpdesk agents triage employee requests, create tickets in connected systems, and resolve common issues before they reach a support team.
  • Employee productivity. Any 8×8 user can configure a personal AI agent through the AI Studio Builder to handle calls, screen requests, and manage after-hours interactions, without IT involvement.

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Infobip at 20: the AI Era Is Here, and the Next 20 Years Start Now https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/infobip-at-20-the-ai-era-is-here-and-the-next-20-years-start-now/ Mon, 13 Apr 2026 08:04:29 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398385

Infobip sets out why the shift to agentic AI represents the biggest opportunity in its history

Global AI-first cloud communications platform Infobip marks the 20th anniversary of its founding. With Infobip AgentOS now live and agentic AI moving from pilot to production globally, Infobip is entering its most significant chapter in its history.

Founded on 13 April 2006 by Silvio Kutić and Izabel Jelenić in Vodnjan, Croatia, with a €25,000 loan, Infobip bootstrapped to a billion-dollar valuation before its first external funding round in 2020, growing from core SMS into an omnichannel communications platform spanning more than 15 natively integrated channels.

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Infobip predicts agentic AI will define the next decade of customer communication with personal AI agents autonomously managing complex customer interactions, from booking travel to resolving billing issues, communicating directly with a brand’s own AI systems by 2030. Gartner® forecasts “that by 2028, AI agents will outnumber human sellers tenfold but less than 40% of sellers will report that AI agents have improved their productivity1”. Research, conducted in collaboration with MIT, shows just 5% of GenAI pilots currently deliver measurable business value, with fragmented data and disconnected systems the leading barriers2. Infobip’s AgentOS platform addresses this directly, unifying customer data across marketing, sales, and support into a single AI-native orchestration layer, enabling enterprises to deploy agentic AI at scale with human oversight built in.

As Infobip marks its 20th anniversary, the company remains focused on what it set out to do in 2006: use technology to bring people closer together. That focus has been shaped by two decades of continuous innovation and co-creating with customers and partners.

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Izabel Jelenić, Chief Technology Officer and Co-Founder of Infobip, said: “When we registered the company, the commercial court initially rejected the name. We had to explain to the clerk why we chose ‘info’ and ‘bip’, arguing that bip captured the beep of the now nostalgic Nokia 3310 message sound that everyone recognised. Making the case for ideas before the world catches up is what we have always done, and it is exactly what we are doing now with agentic AI.”

Infobip believes the businesses that will succeed in the agentic AI era are those that stay closest to the end customer. Infobip is also working to connect search intent directly to RCS for Business conversations, enabling real-time engagement from search results. By 2030, Infobip anticipates this kind of contextual, channel-native responsiveness will be the baseline expectation for every brand interaction.

Silvio Kutić, CEO and Co-Founder of Infobip, said: “Twenty years gives you perspective. We have watched communication evolve from SMS to omnichannel to conversational AI, and what is coming next is the most transformative shift yet. We’ve spent two decades building the global infrastructure and enterprise trust that the agentic AI era demands. We are entering our most ambitious chapter.”

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Segra Launches SkyVoice, a Unified Communications Platform Built for Modern Business Communications https://martechseries.com/sales-marketing/sales-enablement/unified-communications/segra-launches-skyvoice-a-unified-communications-platform-built-for-modern-business-communications/ Wed, 08 Apr 2026 10:39:21 +0000 https://martechseries.com/?p=398164

Segra, one of the nation’s largest independent fiber network companies, announces the launch of SkyVoice, a unified cloud communications platform designed to simplify business communications by bringing voice, collaboration, and contact center capabilities together in one intelligent environment.

SkyVoice gives businesses a unified communications platform that simplifies how teams connect and collaborate, allowing users to access the platform whether they’re in the office or remote through integrated desktop and mobile apps. By bringing essential tools and intelligent features into one centralized platform, it delivers a more seamless, efficient, and modern communications experience. The launch expands Segra’s communications portfolio with a more unified offering built to support evolving business needs.

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“Businesses are trying to manage more communication channels than ever, but many are still doing it across disconnected systems,” said Justin Brinker, Senior Vice President, Strategic Technology Solutions at Segra. “SkyVoice brings those functions together in one environment, making it easier to manage voice, collaboration and customer interactions while giving businesses the reliability and visibility they need to operate efficiently.”

Moving communications to the cloud also gives businesses greater flexibility to adapt as needs change. By reducing reliance on legacy hardware and separate communication tools, organizations can simplify management, avoid costly equipment upgrades and keep technology current while supporting employees and customers across locations.

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SkyVoice supports direct integration with widely used business platforms, including Salesforce, Microsoft Teams, Zendesk, NetSuite, and HubSpot, allowing organizations to connect communications directly into existing workflows and customer systems.

Because SkyVoice is delivered over Segra’s owned fiber infrastructure, customers also benefit from high-bandwidth, low-latency performance that supports clearer voice quality, minimal jitter, and more consistent communications than services dependent on public internet routing.

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