Interest in unified communications (UC) rose sharply in 2025, according to Google Trends.
What sits behind that shift is not certain. But Tim Banting, Head of Research at Techtelligence has a possible answer. He’s identified a few plausible forces in the data and in what enterprises are dealing with right now.
His interpretation:
“The market is not necessarily rushing to buy, it may be relearning the category under new pressure from lifecycle change, AI, and compliance.”
1) A spike in attention, and a possible reset of the basics
Banting first points to Google Trends, adding that interest “nearly doubled in June of this year” after staying “fairly flat” for years.
We may never know the true cause of this, but Banting believes one likely contributor is the steady rise in “end of sale and end of support announcements” from major providers.
This comes as these vendors are “quietly signalling that legacy unified communications models are reaching the end of the road, end of support, end of life.” If customers are being forced to revisit plans, more people may be looking up the basics again.
He also notes the related search terms skew toward discovery rather than selection. “Definition-led searches” are up, while “the buying intent is pretty muted.”
Searches like “what is UC” suggest to him an early-stage “relearning moment,” not a wave of deliberate vendor considerations.
2) AI may be turning UC into a governance issue
Banting’s bigger point is that UC is now tangled with AI and data governance. AI has “transformed voice calls and collaboration sessions into these persistent data assets,” he says.
“They are recorded, they’re all transcribed, they’re summarized and stored, and they’re scrutinized.”
Whether or not that explains the search spike, it does change procurement dynamics. Banting says regulatory and risk management teams are “more actively involved in the procurement cycle”. This is because what used to disappear now creates records that can be reviewed and retained. The stakes can be financial too: “You can get fined as a result of it.”
In his view, the pandemic forced a lot of tactical UC decisions made under pressure. Now, with AI features layered in and regulations tightening, buyers are applying “more scrutiny and more due diligence in people’s buying processes.”
He sums it up sharply:
“AI has turned those tactical decisions into more strategic liabilities.”
3) UC as a “layer,” and committees replacing lone IT decisions
Banting expects UC to remain important, but “it will be more of a layer.” He describes an enterprise stack where UC spans “front office to back office,” and the data feeds “the data layer and the AI layer”.
He jokes about a new term: “layerfication”. Its definition? Enterprises are moving away from siloed tools stitched together with fragile integrations where “everything breaks as soon as a new release of software comes out.” That shift also broadens who buys.
Read more:
- The 2025 UC Reset: 5 Trends Every Enterprise Buyer Needs to Know
- Stop Treating CPaaS as a CX Tool – It’s the Secret Weapon in UC
Banting anticipates cross-functional groups including “IT, legal compliance, HR, and risk,” plus facilities and HR leaders focused on adoption and employee experience. If tools are not used, “the ROI on which you make the buying decision never gets realized.”
The Executive Summary
If we can believe that UC search interest has truly risen on a large scale, then it’s imperative we ask why. Banting’s perspective is that lifecycle deadlines, AI-driven data persistence, and compliance scrutiny are pushing enterprises into a more deliberate assessment phase.
If that holds, the next UC cycle will reward the unglamorous work, “making AI scalable and governable and operationally safe”. Not to mention the platforms that earn this trust under real scrutiny.
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