In the digital age, enterprise contact centers are grappling with a major challenge: scattered and disconnected tools. As a solution, Microsoft Teams and artificial intelligence (AI) offer a promising path to unify these fragmented systems. However, organizational resistance and skill gaps are significant hurdles in achieving a seamless customer experience.
The fragmentation is not a sudden phenomenon. According to Gidi Adlersberg, VP of Product at AudioCodes’ Voca Conversational Interaction Center, “Fragmentation is really everywhere, and I think it’s a phenomenon that only gets worse with time, with the rise of AI.” This disintegration results from companies handling various disconnected CRM platforms and deploying distinct AI bots for different tasks, each contributing to data silos.
For leaders in customer experience (CX) and IT, the aim should now be on devising effective consolidation strategies. The Microsoft Teams ecosystem-leveraging Azure as the unifying platform-shows great potential for integration. Azure’s foundation supports both Teams and AI services, promoting an interconnected environment. This is significant as Teams holds nearly half the UCaaS market, and Azure is among the top three global cloud providers.
The AudioCodes’ Voca CIC exemplifies this consolidation with its Azure-native setup. By incorporating Teams Phone extensibility and Azure Communication Services, it merges Microsoft Teams, contact center capabilities, and AI, creating a unified data pool and user interface. This integration enhances both CX and employee experience.
Despite the evident advantages, many organizations hesitate to embrace consolidation. The primary hindrance isn’t the technology itself, but organizational inertia. Companies often prioritize immediate issues over long-term solutions, leading to a “spring cleaning” problem. They stack solutions without integration, resulting in complex ecosystems that become daunting to manage.
Additionally, the swift advancement of AI technologies has outstripped many organizations’ ability to adapt. Technical teams accustomed to older systems find themselves obsolete as AI demands new skills. As a result, vendors now target C-level executives, focusing on the business gains of AI-powered CX rather than technical details.
Over the next two years, AI’s role in contact centers will transition from an experimental phase to becoming essential infrastructure. However, this evolution isn’t without its challenges. According to Cavell Group’s Q3 2025 Agent Experience Report, 40 percent of agents claim AI has increased their workloads. Initial AI implementations often add complexity instead of reducing it.
However, technologies like AI-driven conversation summaries and voice agents appear ready to become irreplaceable. Adlersberg predicts that AI summaries will soon be an essential feature, transforming contact centers. To this end, AudioCodes has integrated these AI capabilities into Voca CIC, offering call summaries with compliance recording, sentiment analysis, and CRM integration.
Organizations ready to take on fragmentation should pursue a test-driven approach to modernize their AI and CX strategies. Adlersberg advises, “Tell them about your pain points and ask how they’re going to solve them for you.” Testing with actual users provides valuable insights into AI’s real impact on CX operations.
Moreover, as companies explore and validate solutions, they should consider extending their application beyond initial needs. This approach not only addresses current challenges but also opens the path for further technological innovations.
Ultimately, the journey to a consolidated, AI-enhanced customer experience involves leveraging tools like Microsoft Teams and Azure. While the technology is in place and offers proven value, the true challenge lies in organizations’ readiness to prioritize long-term architecture over short-term gains.
