Customers remain committed to their Avaya platforms but are no longer content with stability alone. They demand modernization, flexibility, and a roadmap that balances innovation with cost predictability and risk management.
This article examines the survey’ s major findings, the themes they reveal, and what they mean for both Avaya and its customers. The message is clear: Avaya is entrenched, but modernization is now expected.
AVAYA’ S CONDITIONAL LOYALTY
The first conclusion from the survey is unmistakable: Avaya remains the backbone of its enterprise contact center customers.
For many enterprises, Avaya still represents unmatched uptime, scale, and compliance readiness. In industries where regulatory requirements are strict and downtime is unacceptable, Avaya’ s reputation as the“ safe bet” continues to resonate. Yet this loyalty is conditional. While respondents described Avaya as a“ trusted partner” and the“ gold standard of contact center tools,” they also made clear that reliability alone is not enough. Customers expect visible modernization in areas like AI, advanced speech technologies, and hybrid flexibility.
This sentiment reflects a broader truth: in the contact center market, heritage is no longer a differentiator.
Avaya’ s history of technical depth and reliability provides credibility, but it must be translated into leadership for the next era of CX. Enterprises want proof that Avaya can evolve as fast as customer expectations and competitive pressures demand.
For Avaya customers, the message is equally clear. They can continue to trust Avaya as a viable long-term platform, but only if they proactively demand modernization and integrate innovation layers into their current environments. Legacy strength alone will not sustain competitive advantage.
THE CLOUD DILEMMA: INTEREST HIGH, HYBRID PREFERRED
Cloud migration remains one of the most complex and pressing topics for Avaya customers. The survey reveals both high interest and deep caution.
• 42 % of respondents are evaluating competitive contact center-as-aservice( CCaaS) providers such as Genesys, Five9, and NiCE / inContact.
• 30 %– 32 % are considering Avaya Infinity options for either private or public cloud.
• 29.5 % are exploring hybrid models.
• Only 11 % reported a hard on-premise stance with no interest in cloud.
This distribution reveals a pragmatic reality: cloud benefits are attractive, but wholesale migrations remain too risky for most enterprises.
The clear trend is toward staged, hybrid adoption. Enterprises want to leverage cloud capabilities, particularly for AI, analytics, and digital channels, while protecting their mission-critical Avaya investments.
In other words, cloud is less about“ rip-and-replace” and more about selective modernization.
This finding also underscores why the phrase“ Innovate in Place”, resonates so strongly with Avaya customers.
This method, developed by Swampfox, transmutes their older, legacy technologies into integrated building blocks and synchronously platformed to create more scalable, adaptable, and powerful business solutions.
This ability to extend existing investments, integrate cloud services incrementally, and preserve operational continuity is far more appealing than a disruptive migration.
AVAYA USERS
AI AND SPEECH: FROM OPTIONAL TO ESSENTIAL
If there is one area where the survey results leave no room for ambiguity, it is AI and advanced speech. These capabilities are no longer“ future projects” but are immediate priorities.
• Generative AI conversations( 43.6 %) and intelligent virtual assistants( 43.6 %) topped the list of advanced speech applications enterprises want to implement.
• Natural language understanding( NLU), at 35.9 %, also scored highly, signaling intent recognition and conversational AI are now mainstream expectations.
• More than 40 % already use third-party NLU tools like Google Dialogflow, IBM Watson, or Microsoft Azure.
Perhaps most telling: AI topics were among the top priorities respondents identified for IAUG Converge 2025, the community’ s flagship event. This signals that AI integration is now seen as baseline for modern CX strategies.
The implication is urgent. Enterprises cannot afford to delay AI adoption until after cloud migration.
Instead, the smarter move is to integrate AI within existing Avaya environments now, using solutions to deliver transcription, NLU, and text-to-speech. By doing so, organizations gain immediate efficiency and CX improvements, without waiting years for a full platform shift.
But for Avaya, this finding is a double-edged sword. On one hand, it validates that AI demand is real and immediate. On the other hand, it highlights the competitive risk: if Avaya cannot deliver AI capabilities quickly enough, customers will source them from third-party vendors, weakening Avaya’ s centrality.
DECISION DRIVERS: COST, COMPLIANCE, AND INTEGRATION
When it comes to technology decisions, the survey shows that Avaya customers are guided less by hype and more by pragmatism, as noted earlier.
For those committed to staying on-premise:
• Integration with existing systems( 45.5 %) is the top driver.
• Security and data privacy( 40.9 %) are equally critical.
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