Observed Signal · May 4, 2026 · Research Report · Source: https://martechseries.com/feed/ · Impact: 3/5 · Sentiment: Positive
ISG: Unified, AI-Enabled CXM Platforms Rise
Information Services Group (ISG) published its 2026 Buyers Guides for Customer Experience Management, reporting a shift from fragmented, department-level customer tools toward unified end-to-end CXM platforms that combine contact center, CDP, analytics and marketing automation capabilities. ISG highlights AI as a major driver—powering automation, real-time guidance and predictive decisioning—and recommends enterprises evaluate CXM vendors in the context of AI strategy, orchestration, lifecycle visibility and extensibility. The research assessed 42 providers across five guide categories (including AI-CXM and retail CXM), named Leaders and Overall Leaders (Salesforce ranked top Overall Leader), and identified exemplary and innovative vendors across categories.
ISG's Buyers Guides analyze vendor capabilities and rankings across CXM categories and emphasize AI-driven platform consolidation—insights that influence enterprise vendor selection, CX architecture decisions, and MarTech purchasing strategies.
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Key Takeaways & Evidence Grounding
- Information Services Group (ISG) published the 2026 ISG Buyers Guides for Customer Experience Management.
- ISG evaluated 42 software providers across five Buyers Guides covering CXM, CJM, AI-CXM, Retail CXM and emerging CXM providers.
- Salesforce was named the top Overall Leader among established providers; NiCE was the second Overall Leader; Oracle and SAP placed in third across specified guides.
- ISG identified Exotel, CallMiner and Forsta as the top three Overall Leaders among emerging providers.
- ISG recommends enterprises assess CXM platforms for AI capabilities, orchestration, lifecycle visibility and extensibility into marketing and service domains.
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Related Market Signals & Shifts
Recent verified developments and strategic activity across this market segment.
ISG Launches Study on AI-Native Telecom & Media Services
Information Services Group (ISG) announced a research study and forthcoming ISG Provider Lens® reports examining service providers that help telecom, media and entertainment firms adopt AI-native operating models for engineering, operations and monetization. ISG surveyed more than 80 providers and will publish five reports (covering nine quadrants) titled Telecom, Media and Entertainment AI-Native Transformation Services, scheduled for release in October 2026. The reports will evaluate services such as telco engineering, autonomous operations, media cloud/platform engineering, OTT/streaming experience, and AI-driven monetization including AdTech integration. ISG said enterprise buyers can use the research to evaluate vendors and that ISG advisors will use the findings to guide platform and transformation investment decisions. ISG analyst Yash Jethani will author the reports; Iain Fisher (ISG director) is quoted on the industry's shift to AI-native operating models.
AI adoption hits 90% in CX, deployment paths diverge
Five9’s “2026 Business Leaders CX Report” finds 90% of customer experience (CX) organizations are piloting or deploying AI, but there is no consensus on governance or deployment architecture. Respondents are split among end-to-end platforms, hybrid setups, and best-of-breed solutions. Infrastructure trends favor flexibility: 84% are transitioning from on-premises to cloud and 74% operate hybrid customer care environments (16% fully cloud, 10% fully on-premises). Data security is the top implementation concern (31%), followed by reliability, scalability, and customer consent (27%). Early AI deployments focus on operational efficiency—self-service automation (42%), quality management (41%), and speech/text analytics (40%)—while customer-facing use cases like knowledge authoring (30%), journey analytics (28%), and personalization (26%) lag. Roughly nine in 10 respondents report positive ROI across AI use cases, shifting the conversation toward operational execution, governance, and trust.
Aragon Research Defines $251B Intelligent Communications Experience Market
Aragon Research has introduced the Intelligent Communications Experience (ICX), a new enterprise technology category unifying unified communications, contact centers, and agentic AI into a single architecture. This convergence eliminates silos and integrates AI agents as first-class citizens alongside human employees, fostering a blended workforce for enhanced productivity. The ICX market is projected to grow from $152.13 billion in 2025 to $251.83 billion by 2031. Industry leaders including Intermedia, Mitel, RingCentral, and Vonage have validated the framework, aligning their product strategies with its core layers: core capabilities, ICX Engine, AI Fabric, and Agentic-Channel. This recognition is expected to drive vendor consolidation and M&A activity as providers build comprehensive platforms. Aragon Research provides the full research note to clients.
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