Back by popular demand! In this (almost) mid-year 2025 update, Brad Cleveland will address—in rapid-fire format—the most recent and critical questions emerging from the ICMI community. With his characteristic blend of deep insight, objective analysis, and engaging humor, Brad will help you separate genuine innovations from industry hype, focusing on the strategic priorities that will truly define success. Contact centers stand at a transformative crossroads, and Brad will decode this rapidly evolving landscape that leaders and managers must navigate. He’ll provide actionable insights that will help you and your team succeed today and future-proof your organization for 2026 and beyond.

“Meet Brad Cleveland, ICMI Founding Partner and Former CEO, and our opening keynote host for ICMI’s Contact Center Expo: A Digital Experience. He is here to tell you why you should register for the A Digital Experience of the year taking place April 23, 2025.”

AI is no longer a future concept. It’s here, and it’s changing customer service fast.

Join us for a practical look at how leading organizations are leveraging AI to significantly reduce costs and enhance customer satisfaction at scale. We’ll explore five key trends shaping the future of service, from smarter automation to AI that remembers, learns, and acts. You’ll learn where AI is making the biggest impact and how you can take advantage of it.

The CX AI advantage is real. The future of customer service is here. Are you ready to lead it?

The promise of Artificial Intelligence in contact centers is undeniable, offering unprecedented opportunities to streamline operations and elevate the customer experience. However, its true value can only be realized by focusing on the metrics that matter–those that directly measure AI’s ability to deliver tangible results. For an AI tool to be effective, it must demonstrate its ability to reduce call volumes, resolve customer issues faster, lower operational costs, and enhance customer satisfaction–all without compromising the essential human touch that defines excellent service.

In this high-impact session, we will explore how strategic training, continuous feedback, and structured problem-solving directly enhance Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX). Through real-world case studies and an interactive, hands-on exercise, attendees will discover how to empower employees, reduce workplace friction, and create meaningful CX improvements.

First 10 minutes: Actionable strategies & case studies on improving EX for better CX

Final 10 minutes: Hands-on root cause analysis using a problem-solving framework

Learning Outcomes:

• Gain Proven CX-Enhancing Strategies – Learn from real-world case studies that demonstrate the direct impact of targeted employee training and feedback-driven improvements.
• Engage in a Hands-On Problem-Solving Exercise – Apply structured root cause analysis to uncover and resolve workplace inefficiencies.
• Walk Away with an Actionable Plan – Leave with a personalized roadmap to enhance Employee Experience (EX) and Customer Experience (CX) in your organization.
• Empower Employees for Stronger CX – Discover how ongoing, relevant training equips employees to perform more effectively and confidently.
• Leverage Feedback for Continuous Improvement – Learn how real-time employee insights drive process optimization and workflow efficiency.
• Implement Root Cause Analysis for Lasting Change – Address foundational EX issues to create sustainable, measurable CX improvements.

Bottom Line: When employees are supported, trained, and empowered, CX success follows.”

Join us for an inspiring and insightful presentation that will explore critical elements of building a thriving organizational culture. Discover how leaders can effectively guide, influence, and reinforce desired behaviors. Learn how to adapt and evolve your culture to meet the changing needs of your organization, and employees, this session will provide valuable insights and practical strategies for leaders at all levels who are committed to a positive, productive, high-performing environment.

The rapid evolution of AI in CX has progressed from resource-intensive 1.0 models to generative AI, unlocking real-time and personalized customer engagements. Agentic AI is a significant leap forward, making autonomous data-driven decisions in real time.

Join Tous Celestin of Talkdesk to discover how agentic AI can transform your CX processes, providing the latest in real-time agent guidance, contextual support and recommendations, and more. Plus, discover how to implement AI ethically with trust as a core value.

As customer expectations continue to evolve, contact centers must leverage AI-driven innovations to deliver seamless, personalized experiences across multiple channels. The intelligent contact center enhances both customer and agent interactions by integrating AI-powered automation, real-time analytics, and conversational intelligence. In this session, Nicole Colehamer, Vonage Manager of Solutions Engineering, explores how AI is redefining customer experience (CX) by empowering agents with intelligent assistance, predictive insights, and omnichannel engagement. Discover how organizations can leverage AI to optimize efficiency, improve customer satisfaction, and drive business outcomes—transforming the contact center into a hub of innovation and customer-centricity.

The contact center is evolving—fast. As AI, automation, and real-time data become embedded across the enterprise, the question isn’t whether the contact center will change—it’s how far we’re willing to rethink it. This session explores the future of the contact center as a dynamic, cross-functional nerve center—where frontline agents become orchestrators of experience, AI becomes an always-on co-pilot, and service extends well beyond the walls of a traditional queue. Join us as we reimagine what a modern, adaptive, and intelligent CX environment looks like in 2030 and beyond, and how to start building toward it today.

AI-powered speech and text analytics are transforming contact centers by enabling 100% interaction analysis, yet many organizations struggle to realize the full potential of these tools. Without a strategic implementation roadmap, businesses risk fragmented data, poor agent training, and underutilized technology investments. In this session, Christa Heibel and Liliana Cortes will share real-world insights from AI-driven transformations that have enhanced CX, agent performance, and compliance. Attendees will learn how to leverage speech analytics, sentiment analysis, and machine learning to drive workforce efficiencies and operational excellence. Key areas include implementing AI-driven insights into quality management, optimizing agent assist tools, and ensuring AI complements–not replaces–human oversight. Business leaders will leave with a clear understanding of how to integrate speech analytics and agent assist AI into their existing workflows, ensuring technology aligns with business goals for scalability, compliance, and improved ROI.

This session will provide methods and examples including a presentation from Skullcandy, the leading headphone brand on how to leverage AI and intelligent escalation policies to maximize loyalty, delight, revenue and positive word of mouth.

CCMC’s National Rage studies consistently show the top customer point of pain is getting to a human without struggle. However, most Finance execs want to discourage escalation because it adds to short term expense (though, counterintuitively, it creates 3X future revenue and positive word of mouth compared to deflection of call from a dissatisfied customer).

90% of customers are happy with self-service as long as they can quickly get a clear helpful answer. Between 20% and 80% of customers doing search drop out rather than attempt to escalate and many hit “0” the first thing. This frustration reduces satisfaction by 15% even if the customer ultimately receives an answer.

The key causes of consumer frustration when the answer is not satisfactory are, predictable, but seldom complained about by customers. They include:

• Easily reaching a human
• Delayed or no response
• Lack of an apology
• Lack of a clear believable response (“that is just our policy”)

This session will:

• Review top delighters and how their impact is quantified
• Examples of how Gen AI tools and intelligent escalation strategies can increase loyalty while minimizing extra costs, resulting in white-glove service and enhanced margins.

One of these strategies is a chat-bot equipped with Gen AI to both provide answers AND identify when encouraging escalation creates a compelling business case. At the same time, we will also identify limitations and requirements for success, including hours of escalation and the requirement for intensive measurement to support continuous improvement.

VIPDesk, CCMC and Skullcandy will all provide their perspectives on keys to measurable success and pitfalls.

Are your systems getting in the way of your employees feeling valued and working at their best level? Join Jeremy Markey, a seasoned leader in workforce experience, leadership development, and customer support, and learn from his insights on systems theory and the impact it has on contact centers. Come to hear stories about “Mother Theresa” and how two particular trash cans serve as an example of systems setting humans up for failure or success. Stay for the fresh perspective on systems theory, practical diagnostics for system failures, actionable leadership and workforce strategies, and real-life applications for continuous growth.

Want to see how AI solves real customer service problems? This demo showcase puts NICE’s CXone Mpower platform front and center, moving beyond talk to show you what’s possible.

We’ll show you how CXone Mpower:

• Seamlessly orchestrates every interaction to improve customer satisfaction
•  Builds workflows across the business for end-to-end resolution to speed up resolution times
• Enables seamless collaboration with AI-powered copilots for every role to boost productivity
• Consolidates multiple point solutions into one comprehensive platform, reducing costs and complexity

Join us to see how NICE CXone Mpower unifies customer service with end-to-end resolutions that drive revenue growth, reduce costs, and increase customer retention. Discover the practical implementation of the unified AI approach and leave with insights from this demo on how you can transform your customer service into a major business advantage.

In this session, Tim Wittbrod, Director of CX Specialists at 8×8, explores how organizations can break through the limitations of their customer experience (CX) strategies. The presentation highlights the challenges of fragmented CX technology, the importance of a unified approach, and the role of AI-driven insights in optimizing customer interactions.

Key takeaways include:

• The risks of poor CX and how customer expectations are evolving.
• The need for integrated communication, data, and workforce systems.
• 8×8’s CX platform, which unifies Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS), Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS), and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) for a seamless customer experience.
• How AI, analytics, and automation can enhance efficiency and customer engagement.
  Attendees will leave with a clear understanding of how to simplify, unify, and optimize their CX strategies for long-term success.

Communications today are rapidly and profoundly changing. As AI becomes more ingrained in every part of our lives, it will influence not just the delivery of customer experience, but the expectations customers have for the quality of each interaction. With these increasing demands in customer expectations, businesses need to pivot their approach to designing and delivering better engagement experiences for their customers and employees, scaling customer support and interactions, and becoming data-driven organizations set for success – and they need to do it faster and easier than before.

As AI becomes democratized, its use layered across any solution in the technology stack holds immense potential to deliver personalized interactions that enhance employee collaboration and customer engagement, and to drive overall innovation in how a company does business. With responsible development and utilization of AI (such AI-driven virtual agents and conversation flows to augment contact center platforms) vendors and technology providers have the opportunity to empower customers to do more than ever before.

However, adoption has been challenging within organizations because many companies look to use AI just for the sake of AI, without establishing a plan and specific goals. While consumers expect interactions with businesses to be easy, and AI presents an opportunity to help facilitate that, AI is not an out of the box solution. Implementation requires thoughtful model training and human intelligence to ensure relevant and meaningful connections between businesses and their customers.

In this session, Reggie Scales, Vonage Global Head of Applications, will explore the AI revolution and businesses of all sizes can cut through the noise to easily implement AI tools that augment and enhance the systems and teams they already have in place to deliver real business outcomes that drive sales, increase revenue and, importantly, create exceptional customer experiences

The Deaf and Hard of Hearing (D/HH) community faces significant barriers when interacting with customer support systems, resulting in missed opportunities and lost revenue for businesses. What constitutes a high-quality customer experience for the Deaf community? How many Deaf customers are reaching out to your business today? In this session, we will explore the disparities in customer support for the DHH community, examine the current state of access, and highlight the costs of inadequate solutions. Attendees will gain insights on how to offer more equitable customer experiences, tap into a largely underserved market, and improve overall customer satisfaction.

This session will address the critical gap between the customer support experiences currently offered to the Deaf community and the expectations of both customers and businesses. We will discuss common misconceptions about what constitutes accessible service and explore the real needs of DHH customers. Through a focus on emerging technologies, such as live support using WebRTC, AI-powered sign language recognition, and virtual signing avatars, we will demonstrate how businesses can leverage these tools to provide accessible, impactful, and customer-centric experiences. We will also highlight the importance of integrating live support with native language users to ensure an inclusive environment, strengthen brand reputation, and ultimately unlock access to an untapped market of millions.

Objectives:

• Understand the current limitations of technologies used by businesses to engage with the Deaf community, and why many existing solutions are outdated and ineffective.
• Explore how legacy solutions, some of which are 20-40 years old, contribute to inequitable access and a subpar customer experience for Deaf individuals.
• Learn about innovative, forward-thinking technologies that are improving accessibility, including WebRTC, AI-driven sign language recognition, and virtual avatars.
• Discover the positive impact that equitable customer experiences can have on business success, customer loyalty, and brand equity.
• Gain insights into how businesses can proactively reach and serve the Deaf and Hard of Hearing community, enhancing customer satisfaction while expanding market opportunities.

Let’s be real–your team is buried in workarounds, and your customers are stuck in the same cycle. They try self-service, can’t find the answer, and end up calling–only to meet employees who are just as frustrated because they can’t find the right information either.
In this hands-on working session, we’re not just talking theory–we’re getting to work. Before you leave, you’ll have a process to help you figure out where the gaps are, how much those workarounds are costing, and whether you need a new system or just a better way to use the one you have.

We’ll cover the foundations of knowledge management–what’s working, what’s missing, and where AI fits into the picture. Because let’s face it, AI is only as good as the knowledge it pulls from. If the foundation is weak, AI just makes bad answers faster.

No fluff, no jargon–just a practical, roll-up-your-sleeves approach to making your contact center knowledge work for you. You’ll leave with actionable strategies and real-world examples of companies that have figured out how to make knowledge work for their employees and customers.

This session invites you to embrace the challenging yet transformative nature of leveraging candid feedback through a compelling real-world story from Dow Jones Customer Service. You’ll discover how the Customer Service Excellence team uses employee feedback to increase their department’s satisfaction scores year-over-year, and how they transformed a natural fear of feedback into a driver of innovation.

By being transparent about what you can action on, looking at feedback objectively, and providing a safe space for continued conversations, you can change the fear of feedback into excitement to hear more

In the fast-paced and high-pressure environment of contact centers, burnout is a silent crisis, with up to 59% of agents at risk. This not only leads to skyrocketing turnover rates but also diminishes customer satisfaction and operational efficiency. In this session, we’ll explore why fostering a resilient and positive workplace culture is no longer optional–it’s a strategic necessity. Attendees will walk away with actionable strategies to transform their teams from surviving to thriving, driving measurable improvements in performance, retention, and customer experience. This session is a must-attend for leaders looking to future-proof their organizations by prioritizing their most valuable asset: their people.

This session is designed to equip leaders with the tools and insights needed to create teams that not only outperform but also thrive in an industry where resilience and engagement are critical to success.

Customers expect more than ever before. Loyalty is becoming harder to capture, and many organizations are left wondering how to succeed in this new era of the Experience Economy. It’s time to break free of many of the legacy techniques and mentalities that have been holding us back, and embrace a bold mission-driven approach to CX. New research shows clearly that “personal values alignment” has become one of the top loyalty factors. It’s time to not simply provide an experience, but rather to invite customers into it. By galvanizing employees around the brand core, measuring customer behaviors in enhanced ways, and embracing a community-first approach, we can still capture the hearts and minds of our customers long-term.