Hightouch Launches DSP Marketplace Solution
Hightouch announced a new DSP Marketplace Solution that directly integrates its data onboarding platform with The Trade Desk and Yahoo DSP. The integration lets media networks build warehouse‑native audiences from purchase data, AI scores and consent flags, then list those audiences on DSP marketplaces without routing through a secondary marketplace. Features include a one‑click Match Booster, granular CPM and rate controls, and automated consent synchronization. By eliminating secondary‑market fees, Hightouch aims to improve margins for self‑service offsite media.
Sprinklr Partners with CreatorIQ
Sprinklr and CreatorIQ have integrated their platforms, linking CreatorIQ’s Creator Graph with Sprinklr’s social media reporting environment. The unified system lets brands view creator, organic, and paid performance side‑by‑side, enabling clearer revenue impact analysis. It also allows direct activation of...
EHealth Gives Callers the Regal Treatment
eHealth partnered with Regal to launch Alice, an AI voice agent that handles Medicare Advantage, prescription drug and Medigap enrollment calls. The platform eliminated wait times, delivering zero‑second answer rates and a 27% higher purchase conversion than human screeners. After...
The Top Customer Service Trends and Technologies for 2026: Customer Service Is Getting Supercharged
Artificial intelligence has moved from experimental pilots to core contact‑center workflows, powering real‑time response suggestions, sentiment analysis, and automated summaries. AI‑driven routing and triage have cut average hunting time from 5.15 to 2.37 minutes, while agents shift toward problem‑solving roles...
The Leading Companies and Hottest Trends and Technologies in Customer Service, Marketing, and Sales: The 2026 CRM Top 100
The eighth annual Destination CRM Top 100 spotlights the 2026 landscape of customer‑service, marketing and sales technologies, emphasizing the surge of generative and agentic AI. The report highlights how AI is moving from efficiency‑boosting to autonomous decision‑making across contact‑center, content‑creation and sales‑prospecting functions....
Zendesk Acquires Forethought
Zendesk announced the acquisition of Forethought, an AI‑agent platform, though financial terms were not disclosed. The deal enables Zendesk to embed self‑improving AI agents across chat, email and voice channels. Customers will soon access the new Forethought AI Agents, which...
Invoca Launches AI Voice Agents
Invoca unveiled an AI Voice Agent that leverages real‑time buyer‑journey data to capture caller intent before a call begins, qualify leads, and route high‑intent prospects to the appropriate sales representative. The company also expanded its AI Messaging Agent, enabling automated...
Cyara Launches Agentic Testing
Cyara announced a new agentic testing and AI governance suite for voice and IVR channels, enabling enterprises to validate, monitor, and control autonomous AI agents before they interact with customers. The offering adds an assurance layer that pits AI agents...
SurveyMonkey Launches Automated SMS Survey Invites Directly From Salesforce?
SurveyMonkey announced the launch of automated SMS survey invites within its Salesforce integration on the AppExchange. The new feature lets customer‑experience and support teams trigger personalized text‑message surveys when key Salesforce events occur, such as closing a support case or...
Should Contact Centers Build or Buy Voice AI?
Contact centers face a pivotal choice between building, buying, or using developer‑first platforms for voice AI. The decisive factor is whether a vendor owns the entire model pipeline or simply resells third‑party services, which impacts control, rollback capability, and compliance....
Jump Launches AI Associate
Jump has unveiled AI Associate, an agentic AI layer that lets financial‑services advisors act on insights in real time. The tool integrates with CRM, email, and planning systems, enabling users to pull data, update records, draft communications, and schedule meetings...
Profiled by Prompt, Illustrated by Model: Audit Your LLM?s Assumptions
Ian Jacobs of Opus Research uses a ChatGPT‑generated caricature to illustrate how large language models infer personal and professional traits from prior interactions. The model selectively highlighted his analyst role, Bay Area context, and off‑hour interests while omitting others, revealing...
BBB National Programs Backs CBPR 2.0
BBB National Programs praised the Global Cross‑Border Privacy Rules Forum for finalizing CBPR 2.0, a major update that tightens consumer data protections and accountability in cross‑border transfers. The revision adds stronger safeguards for sensitive and children’s data, a “Preventing Harm” principle,...
Orange Business Extends Live Intelligence and Adds AI Protections
Orange Business introduced Live Intelligence Studio, expanding its Live Intelligence platform to let developers build and govern autonomous AI agents with advanced LangChain‑based tools. The suite adds branded calling, deep‑fake detection, AI‑augmented customer care and agentic telephony, all hosted on...
L'Or?al Drives Brand Awareness and Employee Engagement on Social Media with Sprinklr Advocacy
L'Oréal launched a global employee advocacy program powered by Sprinklr Advocacy, turning staff into brand ambassadors. Within 18 months the initiative generated over 33 million organic impressions and delivered a four‑fold return on investment. The pilot began in 2024 with 900...
Influencer Marketing Platform Market to Be Worth $2.03 Billion by 2031
MarketsandMarkets projects the influencer marketing platform market to grow from $1.15 billion in 2026 to $2.03 billion by 2031, reflecting a 12% compound annual growth rate. The expansion is driven by brands’ push for data‑backed, transparent campaigns and the need for faster...
Fast Simon Now Tells Merchandisers Which Products Are Successful, Overexposed, or Hidden Gems
Fast Simon has upgraded its e‑commerce optimization platform to deliver real‑time visibility into product performance, flagging successful items, over‑exposed listings, and hidden winners. The new module quantifies both short‑term conversion impact and long‑term opportunity costs across the entire catalog. Merchandisers...
Ringover Launches Ask Empower 2.0
Ringover unveiled Ask Empower 2.0, an AI assistant that can ingest and analyze every historical voice and video conversation on its platform, delivering concise briefs in seconds. The upgrade adds immersive call‑simulation training via Pitch Room and real‑time, contextual coaching through...
ContinuumGlobal Partners with Inbox Monster
ContinuumGlobal has teamed up with Inbox Monster to embed the latter’s email rendering and quality‑assurance tools into its Smart Marketing Engine. The integration lets marketers create thousands of personalized email variations and instantly preview how each will display across more...
Informa TechTarget Launches AI Visibility and GEO Solutions
Informa TechTarget unveiled two new offerings—the AI Visibility Audit and the GEO (Generative Engine Optimization) Topic Planner—to help B2B marketers navigate AI‑driven search ecosystems. The audit evaluates how audiences discover brands via AI, pinpointing gaps in visibility and accuracy, while...
Salesforce Teams with NVIDIA to Bring AI Agents Into the Flow of Work
Salesforce and NVIDIA have announced a partnership to embed AI agents directly into everyday workflows. The collaboration leverages Salesforce's Agentforce platform and Slack alongside NVIDIA's Nemotron 3 Nano model, which features a 1 million‑token context window for deep reasoning. Organizations can run these...
LivePerson Partners with Coral Active to Launch LivePerson Sync
LivePerson announced LivePerson Sync, a real‑time integration platform developed with Coral Active. The solution links the Conversational Cloud to major CRMs such as Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics and ServiceNow, delivering customer data directly within the agent workspace. Sync supports four deployment...
Adobe Expands Partnership with NVIDIA
Adobe announced an expanded partnership with NVIDIA to accelerate AI‑powered creation across its suite of products. The collaboration will deliver next‑generation Firefly foundation models built on NVIDIA’s CUDA, NeMo, Cosmos and Agent Toolkit technologies. A public‑beta, cloud‑native 3D digital‑twin solution...
Wise Agent Launches Lead Pipeline
Wise Agent has introduced Lead Pipeline, a visual workflow tool that centralizes lead management for real‑estate professionals. The feature lets agents track prospects from initial contact through closing using customizable stages such as New Lead, Active Buyer, and Under Contract....
fullthrottle.ai Launches Enhanced SmartMail Capabilities
FullThrottle Technologies introduced an upgraded SmartMail feature on its fullthrottle.ai platform, enabling marketers to fuse identity‑driven direct‑mail with digital display, audio, and CTV campaigns. The solution converts third‑party audiences into verified first‑party households, allowing real‑time, trigger‑based mail activations. Integrated into...
Cresta Launches Knowledge Agent
Cresta introduced Knowledge Agent, an AI co‑pilot that delivers precise answers to contact‑center agents in real time without prompting. The assistant lives in a browser sidebar, follows agents across tabs, and merges live audio with on‑screen data such as account...
Barrows Connected Store Partners with QSIC
Barrows Connected Store and QSIC announced a strategic partnership that merges Barrows' in‑store digital video network with QSIC's intelligent audio platform. The combined solution delivers synchronized, multi‑sensory campaigns measured against real‑world transactions, offering brands predictive targeting and closed‑loop attribution. By...
Contentsquare Launches AI Agent And Analytics Capabilities
Contentsquare unveiled Sense Analyst, an AI‑powered analytics agent that consolidates data from websites, mobile apps, AI assistants, and support conversations into a single view. The solution offers personalized insights, a 24/7 Newsroom for issue detection, and scheduled email delivery, while...
8x8 Expands General Availability of 8x8 Engage
8x8 announced that its Engage platform is now generally available worldwide across all communication channels. The company is extending advanced customer‑engagement tools beyond traditional contact‑center agents to front‑line teams. Engage runs on the same unified, cloud‑native platform that 8x8 customers...
The Four Pillars of AI-Driven CX: Turning Technology Into Trust
Customer expectations are outpacing companies’ ability to adapt, with 70% of executives reporting a widening gap. AI alone isn’t enough; firms must embed it across four pillars—assisted agents, intelligent self‑service, operational automation, and adaptive AI orchestration—to turn CX into a...
Low Data Trust Limits the Value of Analytics and AI
Companies are rapidly expanding analytics and AI capabilities, but a new Info‑Tech Research Group study reveals that low data trust is throttling expected business value. Fragmented ownership, inconsistent validation and reactive cleanup dominate current data practices, leading to underperforming analytics...
Spreetail Introduces the Brand Experience Portal (BEx)
Spreetail has unveiled the Brand Experience Portal (BEx), a real‑time dashboard that consolidates sales, advertising, and fulfillment data for its brand partners. The platform integrates existing tools such as Price Pulse, Promise Pro, True Ads, and Smart Shelf, delivering AI‑driven...
Tablevoice Partners with OpenTable
Tablevoice, an AI-powered restaurant host, has announced a partnership with OpenTable to convert missed phone calls into confirmed reservations. The integration allows the AI to converse with callers, capture details, and book directly in OpenTable while logging the interaction in...
Krisp Brings Customer Accent Conversion to Call Centers
Krisp has introduced Customer Accent Conversion, an AI-driven feature that transforms inbound speech in real time so agents hear a clearer version while the caller’s voice, emotion, and context remain unchanged. The processing occurs locally on the agent’s device, eliminating...
Kaltura Launches Agentic AI Conversational Avatars
Kaltura announced Kaltura Agentic Avatars, a real‑time conversational AI video agent that delivers human‑like, intent‑driven interactions across customer, employee, and learner journeys. The company also unveiled a Conversational Agents SDK, enabling developers to embed these avatars into any digital experience...
PCI Pal Integrates with Zoom
PCI Pal announced a partnership with Zoom to embed its secure payment technology into Zoom’s Virtual Agent (ZVA). The integration allows customers to complete transactions within AI‑driven virtual interactions while keeping payment data out of the organization’s environment. Building on...
UJET Launches Agentic Experience Orchestration
UJET unveiled Agentic Experience Orchestration (AXO), an architecture that embeds AI virtual agents directly into contact‑center workflows and links them to enterprise data sources. The platform captures front‑end interactions, automates low‑value tasks, and orchestrates back‑office processes across multiple applications. Human...
Birdzi Launches AskKea Generative BI Interface
Birdzi introduced AskKea, a generative business intelligence assistant that lets grocery retailers ask plain‑English questions and receive decision‑ready answers, visualizations, and exportable data within minutes. The tool integrates structured and unstructured retail data, offering cross‑system insights such as category penetration,...
Businesses Turning to GenAI for Purchase Decisions
Forrester reports that 36% of B2B buyers now use generative AI to discover, evaluate, and purchase solutions, making genAI the leading information source ahead of vendor sites and social media. While AI speeds initial research, buyers still depend on human...
Sinch Launches Voice Relay
Sinch has expanded its Enterprise Voice platform with Voice Relay, a service that lets developers attach text‑based AI agents to live telephone calls. The offering includes an AI‑ready voice infrastructure, enhanced branded‑calling protection, and broader global network reach. Voice Relay...
Webflow Partners with Adobe, Getty Images, OneTrust, and TransPerfect
Webflow announced strategic integrations with Adobe Marketo Engage, Getty Images, OneTrust, and TransPerfect. The partnerships embed personalization, high‑quality visual assets, consent management, and multilingual localization directly into Webflow’s web‑marketing platform. Marketers can now pull campaign data, access licensed imagery, ensure...
Salesforce Launches Agentforce Contact Center
Salesforce introduced Agentforce Contact Center, a unified platform that merges voice, digital channels, CRM data, and AI agents into a single native system. The solution enables AI‑driven self‑service at scale while providing seamless AI‑to‑human handoffs with full context. Agents see...
DemandFactor Rebrands as Demand.com
DemandFactor announced it is rebranding as Demand.com, a move that aligns its corporate identity with a broader full‑funnel demand generation platform. The new name emphasizes the company’s focus on end‑to‑end B2B demand generation, performance marketing, partner activation, recruitment, and agency...
Bambuser Launches GEO Discovery
Bambuser introduced GEO Discovery, a new offering built on its Intelligence Layer that transforms live and recorded video content into structured data for AI answer engines. The service can operate alongside existing Bambuser tools or as a stand‑alone product, delivering...
RingCentral Unveils AIR Pro, an Agentic Voice AI Platform for Customer Engagement
RingCentral announced AIR Pro, a voice‑first, omnichannel AI agent platform embedded in its communications suite. The solution features a no‑code studio that lets users design, build and deploy AI agents that can recognize intent, authenticate customers and execute multi‑step actions autonomously....
Syndigo Acquires Taggstar
Syndigo, a product experience management provider, announced the acquisition of Taggstar, a conversion‑rate‑optimization platform, without disclosing financial terms. The deal adds real‑time, AI‑driven social‑proof messaging to Syndigo’s Product Experience Cloud, extending capabilities across e‑commerce sites, email, social and digital ads....
Shirofune Launches Real-Time Amazon Ads Automation
Shirofune has added a real‑time automation layer to its Amazon advertising platform, targeting high‑traffic sales events such as Prime Day and Cyber Monday. The new feature tracks cost and performance metrics on an hourly basis, allowing advertisers to either maximize...
Boost.ai Introduces Adaptive Voice
Boost.ai has introduced Adaptive Voice, a new capability for its conversational AI platform that blends its Express Voice speech‑to‑speech engine with the Enterprise Voice speech‑to‑text/text‑to‑speech pipeline. The technology automatically selects the appropriate voice mode—free‑flowing for simple interactions or fully compliant...
Generative Video Can Be CX's Sharpest Tool
Generative video is emerging as a contextual CX tool that assembles personalized walkthroughs from a customer’s actual product data, UI state, and issue history. Unlike static tutorials, the AI‑driven clips show the exact steps a user needs, reducing translation effort...
NiCE Launches Agentic AI Innovation
NiCE unveiled an agentic AI platform that converts structured and unstructured enterprise interaction data into ready‑to‑deploy AI agents at scale. The system scans voice, chat, digital channels and workflows, pinpoints high‑impact automation opportunities, and quantifies projected ROI before launch. It...