Summary Bullets:

• Slack has been given a new lease on life from its parent Salesforce, serving as a frontend for the platform.

• It is not yet time to include Slack in the discussion along with rivals, but the company merits keeping a close eye on.

When Slack was acquired by Salesforce in July 2021 for nearly $28 billion, the smart money said that Slack would slide into obscurity. After all, Slack was a second-tier player in the team collaboration space while Salesforce was a premier provider of customer resource management (CRM) technology and a captain of industry at large. Surely, the acquisition would follow the familiar pattern of so many, which preceded it with a ‘big fish’ gobbling up a ‘little fish’ never to be heard from again. For certain, Slack would be stripped of its brand name, and its technology capabilities absorbed into Salesforce’s massive stockpile. Well, quite the opposite happened. Slack has not only survived – it has been granted a new and better life by its parent.

Summary Bullets:

• Mitel CX 2.0 raises Mitel’s stature in the contact center space and its competitive standing in general.

• Mitel has continued to blossom since completing the acquisition of Unify just over two years ago.

Mitel has launched Mitel CX 2.0, an upgrade to its Mitel CX customer experience (CX)/contact center platform introduced in March 2025. Mitel CX 2.0 is significant for the impact it has on Mitel’s position in the contact center space and the role it plays in Mitel’s evolution as a company.

Summary Bullets:

• Microsoft Teams is front and center at Microsoft despite a very limited number of related announcements made at the event.

• Pairing team collaboration and productivity tools provides Microsoft a distinct competitive position.

Microsoft has officially closed the doors on its annual ‘Ignite’ event, a showcase of enhancements across the entire Microsoft portfolio. Only a handful of Microsoft Teams-related announcements were made, giving the impression that Microsoft Teams has taken a back seat to other Microsoft initiatives. In reality, much the opposite is true. The features unveiled were merely the tip of the iceberg, a small subset of a lengthy and diverse list of improvements that appeared in a Microsoft Teams blog.

Summary Bullets:

• RingCentral continues to aggressively grow its portfolio of AI-infused features both for team collaboration and communication as well as for contact center.
• The most significant enhancement to RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR) is the introduction of a standalone version called AI Receptionist Everywhere (AIR Everywhere).

RingCentral has maintained a very aggressive cadence of compiling AI-infused features in its portfolio. That is true with respect to both its team collaboration and communication platform called RingCentral RingEX (RingEX) as well as its contact center platform known as RingCentral RingCX (RingCX). Mirroring a growing trend, it has also implemented features that link team collaboration/communication and contact center, allowing for employees throughout an organization to influence the customer experience. RingCentral’s latest portfolio fortification has arrived in the form of new features for RingCentral AIR.

Summary Bullets:

• New Zoom CX features are noteworthy for their value and symbolize the rise of Zoom.
• The features connect two key trends – the arrival of agentic AI and the transformation of contact centers.

Earlier this month, Zoom announced new features that are noteworthy for the value they add to its customer experience (CX) platform, Zoom CX. However, the real headline is that the features sit at the intersection of two key trends – the advent of agentic AI and the transformation of contact centers – and are emblematic of the rise of Zoom as a competitor.

Summary Bullets:

• Mitel and Zoom have launched the first capabilities stemming from a partnership formed in September 2024.

• Mitel continues to build upon the market momentum it has generated since acquiring Unify in October 2023.

Mitel and Zoom have launched the first capabilities of a hybrid unified communications (UC) solution announced in September 2024 as part of a newly established partnership that saw Mitel name Zoom as its exclusive unified communications-as-a-service (UCaaS) provider. The solution features Zoom Workplace, Zoom’s AI-infused team collaboration platform, starring as Mitel’s sole UCaaS offering within its overall UC portfolio. The solution also incorporates Zoom AI Companion, Zoom’s personal AI assistant. Mitel customers who desire a transition path to UCaaS will be able to blend on-premises capabilities with a mix of private and public cloud.

Summary Bullets:

• RingCentral AI Receptionist is noteworthy because it marks RingCentral’s entry into agentic AI.
• With RingCentral AI Receptionist, RingCentral continues its very aggressive cadence of compiling AI-infused features in its overall portfolio.

RingCentral announced RingCentral AI Receptionist (AIR), an AI phone agent that can answer customer questions and perform basic tasks for them such as scheduling an appointment. It can also transfer callers to the appropriate person or department if needed. At the heart of the offer is the capability to understand natural language. AIR is embedded into RingCentral EX, the company’s team communication and collaboration platform. RingCentral AI Receptionist has been available to select US businesses during a controlled availability phase, with a one-month, 100-minute free trial included. A broader rollout is planned for Q2 2025.