2026 earnings reports from CX vendors show customers buying AI one narrow job at a time, starting with voice self-service and call analytics.

The Gist

Customers start narrow. Missed calls, password resets and call analytics are the most common first AI jobs, according to the latest earnings calls from eight CX vendors.

Adoption is wide, not deep. AI product customer counts are doubling and quadrupling, but RingCentral's CEO said AI still answers a very small share of calls on its network.

Complex work comes later. Multistep, autonomous AI agents are the next phase for most vendors, and delivery capacity and costs are already a strain.

Contact center customers are starting small with AI. They pick a narrow, high-volume job, such as answering missed calls, resetting passwords or analyzing call recordings, prove the return and then buy more. That pattern runs through the latest earnings reports from multiple CX vendors. Adoption is broad by customer count and shallow by share of conversations.…