Spotlight

Report:

The Forrester Wave™: Contact-Center-As-A-Service Platforms, Q2 2025

How does Forrester define the Contact-Center-As-A-Service Platforms market in 2025?

Contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) platform vendors continue to grow, enhancing their offerings by infusing AI and broadening the scope of what they can do. The market faces increasing competition from CRM vendors with new integrations and reference architectures, and hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) have increased their incursion into this space. CCaaS vendors are positioning themselves as an enablement platform for advanced AI capabilities, with AI significantly differentiating cloud-based contact center software versus premises-based systems. CCaaS systems continue to be the place where AI's rubber meets the contact center road, as generative AI and LLMs enable a broad set of valuable use cases.

Key Facts for The Forrester Wave™: Contact-Center-As-A-Service Platforms, Q2 2025 in 2025

How did the Contact-Center-As-A-Service Platforms market evolve in 2025?

What product features are required to be included in this year's evaluation?

What are the common features of top products in the Contact-Center-As-A-Service Platforms space?

No common features specified.

Scope Exclusions

Inclusion Criteria

Vendors must, among other requirements:

Offering Strengths — Relative Weighting

Strategy Strength — Relative Weighting

FAQs

Q: What does this research cover?

A: This research evaluates 10 leading contact-center-as-a-service (CCaaS) platform providers across current offering capabilities, strategy, and customer feedback. The evaluation covers core CCaaS functionality including omnichannel routing, AI orchestration, self-service, agent tools, analytics, workforce management, quality management, integrations, and system architecture. It analyzes how vendors are incorporating generative AI and LLMs, their vision and roadmap, partner ecosystems, pricing models, and customer adoption rates.

Q: Who should use this research?

A: CCaaS customers using this evaluation to inform a purchase decision should use it as a starting point to understand vendor positioning and capabilities. Brands should consider their specific needs around AI enablement, agent experience requirements, desire for broad integrated suites versus best-of-breed solutions, technical complexity tolerance, and global presence requirements. The research helps organizations evaluate trade-offs between simplicity of management with broad suites versus maturity of specialized capabilities, and between out-of-the-box solutions versus customizable platforms.

Q: What are the mandatory features of vendors included in this market?

A: To be included in this evaluation, vendors must provide broad, enterprise-level support for contact-center-as-a-service functionality, natively providing all core functions with a demonstrated track record for supporting large enterprises. The solution must be available as a standalone product with its own SKU and pricing (not solely a free feature). Vendors must have substantial CCaaS revenue of at least $100 million annually from the CCaaS product in the last four quarters. Finally, vendors must have significant mindshare among Forrester's enterprise clients, being frequently mentioned in inquiries, advisories, consulting engagements, and other client interactions over the past 12 months.

Q: What are some reasons for not being included in this report?

A:

  • Insufficient annual CCaaS revenue (less than $100 million in the last four quarters)
  • Lack of standalone product offering with dedicated SKU and pricing
  • Insufficient breadth of enterprise-level contact center functionality
  • Limited track record supporting large enterprise deployments
  • Insufficient mindshare among Forrester's enterprise clients
  • Not frequently mentioned by clients in purchase considerations or shortlists
  • Declined to participate in the evaluation process
  • Did not meet vendor participation requirements for full evaluation

Q: What should buyers consider when evaluating products in this market?

A:

  • Broad CCaaS systems simplify management with a unified platform and single vendor relationship, but new applications beyond core capabilities may need to mature - brands need to evaluate the maturity of noncore functionality
  • The agent experience is equally important - modern agent desktops with workflow management, agent assistance, next best action, and quality management tools that score all interactions provide significant value
  • CCaaS can be an AI enabler for customer service - AI significantly differentiates cloud-based contact center software, though brands may want to consider point solutions in specific cases such as self-service where conversational AI vendors are still ahead
  • Consider whether you need a broad out-of-the-box solution versus an extensible platform for customization
  • Evaluate vendor approach to genAI and LLM integration - some vendors are more aggressive while others are more conservative
  • Consider global telephony network requirements if you have agents around the world
  • Assess the maturity of workforce optimization, analytics, and quality management capabilities based on your contact center size and needs
  • Evaluate the strength of CRM integrations if you have existing strategic relationships with CRM vendors

Q: How has the Contact-Center-As-A-Service Platforms market evolved in 2025?

A:

  • AI has permeated CCaaS systems over the past five years, bringing value to agent assist tools, analytics, self-service, and many other uses
  • Generative AI (genAI) and LLMs enable a broad set of valuable use cases that require neither ripping nor replacing existing systems
  • CRM vendors are challenging the CCaaS value proposition with new integrations and reference architectures that push reporting, desktops, and other functionality to CRM
  • Hyperscalers (Amazon, Microsoft, Google) have increased their incursion into the contact center space, both as CCaaS providers and through their application marketplaces
  • CCaaS vendors help reduce vendor relationships by providing broad capabilities from self-service to agent assist tools, analytics, workforce optimization, and more in a single offering
  • Agent desktops constantly improve with workflow management, agent assistance, next best action, and quality management tools that can now score all interactions instead of randomly sampling
  • Modern systems measure customer sentiment throughout an interaction to flag relevant moments for coaching opportunities

Q: What differentiates Strength of Offering vs. Strength of Strategy?

A: Strength of Offering evaluates the current capabilities, features, and functionality of the CCaaS platform including AI capabilities, agent tools, analytics, integrations, architecture, and technical infrastructure. Strength of Strategy evaluates the vendor's vision, innovation approach, product roadmap, partner ecosystem, customer adoption rates, pricing model, and support services - focusing on the vendor's strategic direction and market execution rather than current product features.

Reference

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