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Future‑Ready CX Starts with the Right Foundation

June 2026

We were recently asked to help build a contact center (also known as a CX organization) from the ground up for a new AI start-up. The opportunity sounded straightforward: what system and applications are needed? However, the answer doesn’t start with technology; it starts with strategy. Before determining system and application categories, an organization must first define the contact center’s mission in alignment with the company’s broader objectives. Is this a digital‑first operation? An AI‑centric service model? Something else? The strategic foundation and mission dictate the functionality, underlying technologies, and applications needed to achieve the goal. And while most contact centers share a standard set of functions and core components, AI’s rapid rise is reshaping what that stack looks like, making the old blueprint less of a given and more of a starting point for a different kind of build.

Identify functionality, not solutions

The most effective contact center build starts by identifying the functional capabilities required to execute the strategy and then mapping those needs to specific solutions or platforms. This approach enables organizations to document their requirements before evaluating vendors. Start by asking: what does the customer journey require? Will front and back-office operations be combined or operate as silos? Is omnichannel (voice and digital) intelligent routing necessary, or will this be a digital-only environment? Are both inbound and outbound interactions standard? What role will AI play in the contact center? Will self-service be the primary servicing approach, or are you striving to provide a balanced human/automated support organization? What AI tools do you need to support agents? What system integrations are needed today and in the next 3 to 5 years? How will security be addressed? While there are many more questions to ask, avoid relying on past assumptions and focus on defining functional characteristics for the customer journey you want to deliver in the future. 

Map functions to IT categories

With functional requirements documented, the next step is to organize them into logical categories to determine the systems or platforms required to build your contact center. It is also good practice to prioritize your company’s requirements as contact centers use more than 45 different systems/applications, several of which overlap. But this is where things get interesting: the traditional way of selling these solutions has changed and continues to evolve. Vendors that came to market with a point solution, such as automated quality management (AQM) or workforce management (WFM), are expanding their offerings to cover multiple product categories. At the same time, contact center as a service (CCaaS) providers that started as routing and queuing engines are incorporating functionalities, such as AQM, real-time-guidance (RTG), and automated post-interaction summarization, that previously required separate purchases. The result is a CX technology market where category lines are blurred, vendor capabilities overlap, and the best solution for a given function may be bundled into a platform originally targeted for a different, albeit complementary purpose. For these reasons, DMG recommends that companies:

1. Separate their functional requirements into logical CX IT categories so that they have insight into the actual systems they need, while keeping an open mind about how they may acquire them. The more common categories are:

  • Channels: voice and digital 
  • Core infrastructure: omnichannel inbound and outbound routing and queuing, presence, recording, and agent desktop
  • Customer-facing self-service: voice prompter, interactive voice response, speech recognition, intelligent virtual agent, and conversational AI
  • Workforce engagement management: workforce management, AQM, surveying/voice of the customer, conversation interaction analytics, knowledge management, customer journey, performance management/business intelligence, coaching/eLearning, gamification, and desktop analytics
  • Customer relationship management: customer service, sales, marketing, ticketing, etc. 
  • Security, fraud, and regulatory compliance: security protection, fraud detection, 2-factor authentication, voice biometrics, E-signature, risk controls, AI guardrails, and governance
  • AI: GenAI, large language models (LLMs), agentic AI, orchestration, machine learning, RTG, transcription, sentiment analysis, automated post interaction summarization, and predictive analytics
  • Data repositories
  • Underlying technology: computing, unified communications-as-a-service, session border controllers, network management, messaging, rules engine, workflow, robotic process automation, natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU), WebRTC, softphone, and integration application programming interfaces (APIs)

2. Conduct market research and speak to an industry analyst about the most effective approach for acquiring the solutions your organization requires. For small and mid-sized contact centers, this will likely mean purchasing an open platform that addresses most of your functional requirements. For highly complex organizations with internal resources to implement, integrate, and maintain their own systems, it may be more effective to purchase composable point solutions. Or it could be a combination of a broad platform along with point solutions to fill functional gaps. The tradeoff is that a platform provides relative simplicity, and composable provides greater flexibility. What is essential is selecting platforms and solutions that come with an open integration layer, whether through model context protocol (MCP) or APIs to many of the other AI and CX applications. 

Select and evaluate vendors

At this point, enterprises are in a good position to evaluate vendors and their solutions. Identify vendors whose solutions align with your documented requirements, and use those requirements to guide the evaluation and demo process. Keep the conversation grounded in what your organization needs, not what each vendor wants to sell. While it is helpful to learn about new capabilities and market direction, avoid letting vendors reshape your priorities or expand your scope beyond what your strategy requires.

At the same time, keep an open mind about how vendors are solving problems differently than expected. AI is enabling approaches that did not exist even a year ago, and a solution that addresses your requirements in an unconventional way may be more effective and future-proof than one that simply follows the traditional model. The goal is to stay anchored to your requirements while remaining open to better ways of meeting them.

Final Thoughts 

The contact center technology landscape is changing so quickly that over the next few years, it will be nearly impossible for any enterprise to remain fully current. The goal is to set up a CX technology infrastructure that can quickly and relatively easily evolve to take advantage of market innovation. Start with a clear strategy, select solutions with open integration capabilities, and design your operating environment for both effectiveness and adaptability. While AI is transforming the technology market, CX organizations still require many of the same core capabilities they needed in the past. What’s changing is how they are delivered, how they perform, and the outcomes they produce. The contact centers that thrive and consistently deliver an outstanding CX will be built with the flexibility to adjust as the market, technology, and customer expectations evolve.