Contact Center AI, UCaaS, and the Mid-Market Businesses Caught in the Middle

Your Communication Stack Wasn’t Designed. It Just… Happened.

And now it’s costing you more than you think.

Watch: Why Mid-Market Comms Are Stuck in “Hybrid Sprawl” — and How AI Actually Fixes It

Every growing business adds tools the same way: a phone system here, some SMS there, a collaboration app when things got busy. Nobody planned it. It just accumulated.

Now you’ve got a stack of systems that don’t talk to each other — and a team stuck doing “swivel chair” work, logging into one app, then another, then another, just to get through the day.

In this interview, Christopher Carey (UC Today) sits down with Mark Sher, SVP of Product Marketing at Intermedia, to unpack what’s really going wrong inside mid-market communication stacks — and where AI genuinely helps versus where it’s just noise.

What You’ll Learn

The real diagnosis behind “our phone system is old” Most businesses come in with a tactical complaint. The actual issue is almost always bigger — and fixable.

The hidden cost of fragmentation It’s not just duplicate software spend. It’s lost revenue, slower service, and hours wasted on tools that don’t work together.

The #1 red flag your stack has become a liability One word: friction. Learn how to spot it before it spreads.

Two kinds of AI — and why the difference matters “Out of the box” AI (like call summaries) carries almost no risk. AI that needs to understand your business is a different game entirely — and getting it wrong is where most AI initiatives fail.

The numbers that matter Agents using AI-assisted call support are 4x less likely to put a customer on hold — and when they do, it lasts 3 seconds instead of 80.

What to ask before buying any AI-powered comms platform (Hint: it’s less about asking, more about testing it yourself.)

Meet Your “Digital Teammates”

Intermedia’s approach reframes AI as something simpler than a strategy slide: teammates.

• Assistants — help your people work faster (real-time answers on live calls, instant summaries, less training overhead)
• Agents — handle entire conversations end-to-end, from answering the phone to booking the appointment

No bolt-on tools. No fractured data sources. Just AI built into the platform your team already uses.

Watch the Full Interview

19 minutes. Zero fluff. Real talk about where your comms stack stands — and where it needs to go.

Ready to See Where Your Stack Stands?

If any of this sounds familiar — friction, fragmentation, tools that don’t play nice — you’re not alone, and it’s fixable.