Agentic AI winners at Enterprise Connect 2026

Agentic AI Dominates Enterprise Connect 2026

Enterprise Connect 2026 marked a definitive shift from theoretical artificial intelligence to practical agentic deployment. The annual gathering showcased a market moving beyond simple chatbots toward autonomous systems capable of complex reasoning and execution. This blog overviews our analysis of some of the winners at Enterprise Connect and offers our rationale.

Why did CCaaS Vendors Announce New Agentic Capabilities?

The primary driver behind these announcements is the demand for faster time-to-value and reduced complexity in AI orchestration. Salesforce took center stage with its Agentforce Contact Center, a platform designed to handle autonomous tasks without the friction found in legacy systems. Dialpad introduced its Skill Builder, aiming to simplify the creation of specialized agents to a degree that rivals or exceeds general-purpose LLM interfaces. RingCentral countered with AI Expert Studio, focusing on a no-code experience that empowers business users to configure agents with ease. Mitel demonstrated command and control capabilities for mission-critical voice, while NICE launched an innovation focused on utilizing existing customer data to bypass long design cycles.

Analysis: Salesforce Agentforce Stole the Show

Salesforce effectively stole the show by positioning the contact center as an extension of the CRM through its new Agentforce Contact Center. This move signals a market shift where the CRM becomes the primary engine for customer interaction, potentially marginalizing standalone CCaaS providers who cannot match this level of data integration. The focus is no longer on the conversation itself but on the autonomous resolution of customer intent within the system of record.

Analysis: Dialpad Skill Builder Challenges LLM Complexity

Dialpad is challenging the technical barriers of AI development with its Skill Builder. We noted that skill building with DialPad was as easy or easier than Claude Cowork. By making the creation of custom agents easier than building skills in leading LLM platforms like Claude, Dialpad is moving the competition from model capability to developer experience. This approach targets mid-market enterprises that lack deep data science teams but require sophisticated automation.

Analysis: RingCentral AirPro Studio Simplifies Agent Creation

RingCentral demonstrated that the era of complex AI implementations is ending. Their AirPro Studio showed that a business person, not just a developer, can configure a functional agent with ease. They did this live on stage during their keynote. This shows the potential for democratizing AI across the enterprise. This also puts pressure on competitors to simplify their administrative interfaces or risk being excluded from rapid deployment scenarios.

Analysis: Mitel Proves the Power of Mission Critical Voice

Mitel carved out a unique position by focusing on the command and control aspect of communications. By showing how a supervisor or person in charge can be automatically speak into existing an channel for mission-critical updates, Mitel highlighted why they remain a go-to provider in high-stakes environments. This reinforces the idea that in certain industries, reliability and authoritative communication outweigh general-purpose automation.

Analysis: NICE Shifts CX Operations with Data-Driven Agents

NICE is pivoting the market toward data-driven automation rather than manual bot building. Their new innovation signals a shift where existing interaction data identifies common needs and deploys agents to address them immediately. This represents the potential for agentic agents at scale and has the potential to reduce the need for long design cycles and manual scripting, allowing CX teams to move from experimentation to production deployments more quickly.

What Should Enterprises Do?

Enterprises should evaluate these new offerings based on their existing data architecture rather than the slickness of the demonstration. If your organization is heavily invested in a Salesforce, the Salesforce ecosystem may offer the path of least resistance. However, for mission-critical or high-compliance environments, the specialized controls demonstrated by others are compelling alternatives. For Agentic AI, consider piloting these low-code agent builders to determine if your line-of-business managers can actually maintain them long-term.

Bottom Line

Enterprise Connect 2026 proved that the era of experimentation is over and the era of the autonomous agent has arrived. The focus has shifted from what AI can say to what AI can do within the workflow of a contact center. Enterprises must move beyond testing basic chatbots and start architecting a strategy that supports autonomous agents across all communication channels. Failure to integrate these agentic capabilities within the next eighteen months will result in a significant cost-to-serve disadvantage compared to more agile competitors.

Editors Note: Look for Part II on the winners in the Visual Enterprise at EC26.