The modern contact center has become a technological Frankenstein’s monster. Between CRM platforms, AI bots, workforce management tools, and communication channels, IT and CX leaders are managing ecosystems so fragmented that basic customer interactions require data to traverse multiple disconnected systems. Inefficiency is one thing, but this is possibly unsustainable.
This fragmentation didn’t happen overnight. As Gidi Adlersberg, VP of Product at AudioCodes’ Voca Conversational Interaction Center (CIC), explained, the problem compounds over time. “Fragmentation is really everywhere, and I think it’s a phenomenon that only gets worse with time, with the rise of AI” he noted.
The result is that enterprises routinely operate 10 to 20 different CRM platforms across departments, each generating its own data silo. Add AI to the equation, with organizations deploying separate bots for HR benefits, sales, campaigns and expense reports, and the fragmentation challenge intensifies exponentially.
For CX and IT leaders, the focus should no longer be on whether to consolidate, but rather on how to do so effectively.
Azure and Teams: The Foundation for True UC-CX Consolidation
Microsoft’s ecosystem presents a compelling case for unification. Azure sits at the foundation, serving as the common denominator for both Teams and AI services. “When we talk about fighting or solving fragmentation, we want to talk about consolidation,” Adlersberg said. “To consolidate, you need to look for the best common denominator, and in this case, it’s Azure.”
The numbers support this strategy. Teams has become the world’s largest UCaaS platform, with a nearly 50 percent market share, while Azure ranks as one of the top three cloud providers worldwide. This convergence addresses a critical pain point, connecting frontline agents with back-office expertise without requiring expensive contact center licenses for every employee.
AudioCodes’ Voca CIC exemplifies this approach, leveraging Teams Phone extensibility and Unify integration through Azure Communication Services to provide a true Azure-native integration. The platform unifies Microsoft Teams, contact center capabilities, and AI into a single data pool and UI, enabling organizations to boost both customer experience and employee experience simultaneously.
The Spring Cleaning Problem: Why Enterprises Delay Consolidation
Despite clear benefits, most organizations struggle to execute consolidation strategies. The culprit isn’t technology but organizational inertia. “The biggest enemy of change is just day-to-day life and reality,” Adlersberg observed. “We see a lot of enterprises gravitate toward short-term priorities.”
This pattern creates what Adlersberg called the “spring cleaning” problem. Organizations layer patch upon patch, solution upon solution, until they’ve constructed ecosystems so complex that integration becomes an overwhelming project.
But resistance extends beyond scheduling conflicts. The rapid advancement of AI has outpaced many organizations’ ability to hire and maintain expertise. Technical teams comfortable with existing systems face obsolescence as AI-powered solutions demand entirely new operations.
This dynamic has shifted vendor sales strategies toward C-level executives, emphasizing business outcomes over technical specifications. When senior leaders understand the competitive necessity of AI-powered CX and mandate implementation, technical objections often dissipate.
The Next Two Years: From Experimentation to Essential Infrastructure
The role of AI in contact centers is evolving from experimental novelty to operational necessity. Yet the transition remains rocky. According to the Cavell Group’s Q3 2025 Agent Experience Report, 40 percent of agents report that AI has actually increased their workload, rather than reducing it. Early implementations, rushed to market amid AI hype, often create more complexity than they resolve.
“I want to start with that because you have a lot of AI solutions today that, instead of making life easier for the agent, actually make it more complex,” Adlersberg noted. The next 18 to 24 months will separate AI capabilities that provide genuine value and true business outcomes from those that simply rebrand existing features.
Two technologies appear poised to become indispensable: AI-powered conversation summarization and voice agents, such as an AI receptionist experience. “My expectation is that within one to two years, things like AI summaries will become obvious,” Adlersberg predicted. “A contact center won’t be able to live without AI summary capability.”
AudioCodes has embedded these capabilities directly into Voca CIC through its Agent Insights feature, which provides AI-generated call summaries with compliance recording, sentiment analysis, and customizable CRM integration. The customer-facing experience will transform even more dramatically, with touch-tone IVR systems facing extinction. “I really believe that in a few years we won’t see that anymore,” Adlersberg said.
Testing Your Way to AI & CX Consolidation
For businesses ready to move beyond fragmentation, AudioCodes advocates a pragmatic, test-driven approach to AI and CX modernization. “The good news is it’s 2025, or almost 2026, and we see customers doing a lot of self-research,” Adlersberg observed. “In 90 percent of the discovery calls we have with potential customers, they already know our solution very well.”
His advice for enterprises begins with a challenge: “Tell them about your pain points and ask how they’re going to solve them for you. Test, and when I say testing, I don’t only mean testing with your IT. Give it to actual users, actual business lines, actual contact center agents. That’s your only way of knowing if AI is going to make a true impact on your customer-facing operations.”
As organizations test, they should remain open to expanding the scope beyond initial use cases. “You might have started your discovery or testing from a need that was in front of you, but as you learn the solution and understand the technology better, you might realize, ‘Wait, I can take this here and there and there,'” Adlersberg explained.
Next Steps
The path from fragmented CX to consolidated, AI-powered customer experience runs through Microsoft Teams and Azure. The technology exists, proven implementations demonstrate value, and the business case for consolidation continues to strengthen daily. What remains is the organization’s willingness to prioritize long-term architecture over short-term expediency.
For CX and IT leaders ready to explore consolidation, visit here to learn more about Voca CIC’s Microsoft Teams integration and AI capabilities, or request a demo to test the platform with your actual use cases.
