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Enterprise Connect
March 10-12, 2026
Caesars ForumLas Vegas, NV
How Collaboration Platforms Will Evolve

Digesting the myriad takeaways from an Enterprise Connect show is always a lengthy process – there’s so much to consider, so many diverse technologies and business challenges to size up. So we’ll spend the next few weeks in this newsletter offering some initial impressions as well as some clear trends that seem to have emerged from this month’s event.

I want to start with the core process that Enterprise Connect focuses on – collaboration, either among an enterprise’s employees, or with its customers and partners. Diane Myers, principal analyst at Metrigy, kicked off our first morning’s half-day summit on collaboration with some provocative survey data: Over half of enterprises are willing to spend more to gain enhanced features on a basic UCaaS service, and 35% are willing to pay 11% - 20% more. Most-desired features, according to Metrigy: AI virtual assistant, AI-enabled IVR, and room/desk/space reservation capabilities.

So the UCaaS platform of the future will be AI-enhanced and integrated with more business platforms than ever – potentially including CCaaS. Indeed, Metrigy found that 32% of enterprises already use the same vendor for UCaaS and CCaaS, and another 51% are planning to do so in the future. But when Diane engaged with a panel of collaboration vendors after presenting her data, it became clear that the ambitions for AI are much higher.

As AI starts to permeate communications platforms, the key task will be to effectively and safely integrate systems of engagement – collaboration systems -- with systems of record such as CRM, said Amir Hameed, SVP, global technical solutions & innovation at RingCentral. This will enable the enterprise to optimize collaboration at all stages: Before the meeting/event, by automating systems like scheduling and setup; during the meeting, to derive insights; and post interaction, for analysis. “Leveraging AI in all those areas truly takes it to the next level,” Hameed said.

However, technology for its own sake is not anyone’s idea of the right approach to layering AI into collaboration. Shawn Rolin, head of technology at Zoom, was even willing to quantify the needed benefit. From the end user’s perspective, “If it doesn’t improve my workflow by 10x, I’m not going to change that behavior” to use the AI-driven feature. The job is “finding those very specific valuable use cases” that can be derived from data such as a user’s call and engagement history, or a smart receptionist function, he added.

And Amey Parandekar, product management leader at Cisco, noted that data such as the content of calls coming into a retail store may be captured and used to solve business problems, but with all these use cases, there will be the critical issue of governance to contend with. He emphasized that vendors such as Cisco don’t use customers’ data to train their AI models, and that enterprises have to move cautiously as they look to adopt AI features. “That takes time for large companies,” he said.

So the industry seems poised to continue incrementally adding AI features to collaboration platforms, and those platforms will continue to straddle the need to maintain existing business-critical services even as enterprises explore new functionality. We’ll continue our post-EC report in next week’s newsletter.





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For over 35 years, Enterprise Connect has been the premier event where IT leaders, solution providers, and industry analysts come together to define the future of enterprise communications. As the most trusted conference in the industry, we deliver cutting-edge insights, world-class networking opportunities, and hands-on solutions that drive real business success.

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  • Legacy Unleashed: Optimizing Your Communications Backbone
  • Workplace Reimagined: Engineering Tomorrow's Collaboration
  • Tech Disruption Zone: Implementing Without Imploding
  • Achieving Transformation: Architecting Your 3-5 Year Roadmap
  • Future Shock: Communications Tech Beyond the Horizon

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