In this customer-led case study, Sarina Swan-Allen, Senior Director of Customer Contact Center at Vitalant, and Gina Gibson, CEO of Think Forward, share how one organization moved from vendor overload to confident AI adoption–without pausing the business. While the case takes place in healthcare, the challenges, approach, and outcomes apply to any contact center navigating AI evaluation and implementation.

Contact centers are among the most critical functions in modern organizations. They sit where customers experience the consequences of policies, products, operations, and technology, and they are where failures in the system show up quickly and repeatedly. Despite that, contact centers have historically been treated as cost centers, designed primarily for transaction handling and efficiency. This session makes the case for a different, practical view: contact centers can be value centers when the organization can clearly articulate the value they create and intentionally builds the conditions to deliver that value in a sustainable way. 

Rather than focusing on performance policing, this talk reframes how leaders interpret operational, technical, and experience data, revealing how systemic issues, not individual shortcomings, are often the true drivers of poor outcomes. This session debunks some of the industries relied upon models like the vitality model from Jack Welch. Attendees will learn how to spot hidden patterns, act earlier, and intervene with empathy, protecting both agent wellbeing and business performance.

Join Steve Campbell, ICMI Sr. Consultant, and Todd Piccuillo, ICMI Sr. Director, for a discussion on how contact centers can prepare for AI in a practical, human-centered way. We’ll cover how to build an AI roadmap by defining and prioritizing use cases, assessing data readiness evaluating technology options, modeling costs and benefits and establishing clear governance and guardrails.

Contact center culture isn’t built during offsites or engagement initiatives–it’s built in the gaps between policy, workload, tools, and expectations. This session helps leaders understand how everyday operational decisions quietly shape trust, ownership, and psychological safety on their teams. Attendees will learn how to identify the cultural signals they’re unintentionally sending and how to strengthen the foundations that allow teams to perform sustainably under pressure.

In this session, Jason Mercer-Pottinger will share how Vantive implemented AIQA across three countries, how the organization shifted from manual scoring to AI-enabled behavioral analytics, and how frontline leaders now coach using real-time insights rather than weeks-old samples. Attendees will learn the operational blueprint, change-management model, governance structure, and quantifiable results — including improved service consistency, reduced variability, and more engaged agents.

Your AI can surface the insight. Can it act on it? Your customers aren’t waiting. And neither is the competition. In this live demo, see how CXone turns real interaction data into intelligent action across every interaction, workflow, and team.

The session explores practical tactics such as micro-shifts, using text messages to quickly ask available agents to log in when volume unexpectedly surges, and unscheduled agents who can pick up and trade shifts–approaches that improve coverage while also reducing burnout, absenteeism, and attrition. It will also touch on emerging options, including employer-of-record (EOR) and international gig talent, and how these models further expand what’s possible.

Contact center leaders spent $2.1B on AI tools last year. A significant portion of that investment is actively degrading productivity because nobody taught them how to evaluate where automation helps versus where it adds friction. This session cuts through vendor promises and consultant frameworks to show you exactly which operational functions benefit from AI, which ones don’t, and how to measure the difference before you sign another contract.

What does it take to build an award-winning contact center? In this panel, 2025 Global Contact Center Award winners will share the secrets to their success. From employee engagement and CX strategies to metrics and more, they’ll break down what worked, what didn’t, and what they would do differently today.

In this session, you’ll learn a proven leadership framework designed to accelerate the growth of early-career professionals with clarity, intention, and impact. Developed by a manager who has successfully onboarded, stretched, and promoted multiple high-potential employees in under 18 months, Build. Stretch. Prepare. (TM) is a system that transforms onboarding into development, 1:1s into strategy sessions, and stretch assignments into launchpads.

In this session, we cut through the hype and explain Agentic AI in practical terms, with a specific focus on contact centers and the modern customer experience. You’ll learn how Agentic AI differs from traditional Conversational AI, why the shift from intent-based automation to goal-driven execution matters, and where organizations are already putting Agentic behaviors into production today.

There has been a tremendous shift in our space when it comes to how customers are receiving service. They no longer start with a brand when they need help. They start with an AI-enabled search ecosystem that sits entirely outside the company’s control. This shift is redefining how issues are resolved, how opinions are formed, and how buying decisions take shape. When external channels outperform brand-owned resources, the implications extend far beyond issue resolution. How should a modern service leader respond to this trend? 

Customers don’t experience your AI strategy; they experience the outcome. They expect every interaction to be faster, smarter, and fully resolved. Join us to explore five priorities moving AI from assistant to operator – shifts that take AI beyond isolated use cases and into the core of how businesses run, connecting decisions, workflows, and experiences across the enterprise.

Contact centers are navigating contradictions—AI promises versus AI reality, retention challenges despite record investment, leadership confidence that doesn’t always match frontline experience. In this session, Brad decodes what’s actually changing, what’s stubbornly stuck, and what you must do now to stay ahead—offering practical insights to help you succeed today while positioning your contact center for 2027 and beyond.