For many companies, contact centers are an undeniable reality of doing business.
Whether it is in the form of aftercare or support—like with SaaS companies—or as part of a core offering—like emergency call-out services—contact centers provide essential information or access for customers.
Yet, as many users of contact centers can testify, their experience with them is not broadly positive.
Long wait times are often the biggest frustrations with contact centers.
As a result, the CCaaS industry has been tackling the issue head-on.
Using AI, companies have found ways to take pressure off agents during peak times so customers are still served without having to wait for agents.
One example of this is with NICE, who have developed an AI-powered self-service bot: the CXone Mpower Autopilot.
But far from this being an extension of the dreaded chatbot or interactive virtual receptionist that is not too well received by users, NICE has recently reported their AI autopilot has increased in use by 400%.
Examining the Increase
CXone Mpower Autopilot is part of a suite of AI-driven products within NICE’s CXone Mpower CCaaS platform, released in June 2024.
In under a year, NICE’s recent report found it entered a record-breaking time for its CX automation and augmentation: 6 billion AI-augmented interactions and 2 trillion AI-analyzed words per month in 2024.
This represented a surge in the number of customer service interactions leveraging AI and automation.
In 2024 alone, NICE managed the equivalent of 123,560 years of knowledge consumption.
And this increase was equitable across the companies it works with.
Its 2024 Customer Highlights saw entertainment company Sony identify that 40% of its inquiries were automation-ready, leading to a 15.9% self-service resolution rate with Autopilot.
Cruise operator Carnival UK managed to streamline 1.2 million guest interactions annually with CXone Mpower.
TD Bank Group, one of North America’s largest banks, cut customer wait times by 88 million minutes in a year—even as the volume of calls handled increased by 11%—while reporting record-breaking customer satisfaction.
“We’ve reached a pivotal moment in the customer service evolution where automation now touches every interaction,”
Barry Cooper, President, CX Division, NICE, said.
It’s not just NICE; other UC providers are pushing for AI innovations in their CCaaS and contact center solutions, too.
Just last month, RingCentral released its AI Receptionist. This Agentic AI solution can take customer calls, absorb their questions, answer them with the correct business-related information, and even transfer callers—all through voice.
But what is causing this pivot toward AI?
AI Acceptance in Contact Centers
AI has bled into almost every facet of technology, both consumer and enterprise-focused.
Graphic design software Canva now has AI functions to help with image creation, just like accounting software Sage, which has AI automation to crunch the numbers. It is inescapable.
Equally, unlike previous technologies, AI has turned out to be quite good and useful.
A survey by American think tank Pew Research found that 55% of Americans said they regularly use AI.
Therefore, not only is it everywhere, but people generally understand its capabilities and effectiveness and are open to using it.
In fact, a 2025 Zendesk study found 51% of consumers say they prefer interacting with bots over humans when they want immediate service.
Equally, a Gartner survey looking at 2025 found 85% of customer service leaders plan to explore or pilot customer-facing conversational generative AI solutions.
Not only does this show that AI has managed to change consumer opinions on chatbots, but leaders are paving the way to make this a reality and transform how customers interact with contact centers.
A Future of AI CCaaS
Despite the statistics looking good for AI, having an AI-only or AI-majority CCaaS may not be on the cards just yet.
As NICE’s Barry Cooper explained, the 2024 CXone Mpower numbers are helping businesses realize the value of “AI and human collaboration in driving automated customer service.”
An industry management software company, Katana, reported that roughly 49% of respondents to their survey showed they prefer interacting with a real person for customer support, while only 12% said they prefer interacting with an AI chatbot.
Therefore, it shows CCaaS still has a place for human agents as opposed to AI agents or chatbots.
But as the NICE recent statistics have shown, the use of AI as a point of contact is growing at a rapid rate.
