Turning AI into Real Results: What CX and IT Leaders Need to Hear.

AI. Automation. Analytics. If you’re a CX or IT leader today, you’ve probably heard the buzzwords a thousand times over—and seen just as many half-baked implementations.

But the real question isn’t if AI has potential. It’s how to make it work for your business.

That’s exactly what a panel of industry experts tackled in the recent webinar, “Beyond the Buzz: Turning AI into Real Insights.” The conversation—led by industry analyst Sheila McGee-Smith, 8x8 VP of Global Product Management Lisa Orford, and Simon Black, COO of Creovai—dives into what it actually takes to move AI beyond the hype and into your contact center in a way that drives measurable outcomes.

Here’s a preview of what stands out—and why this webinar might be the most grounded AI conversation you’ll hear this year.

AI isn’t the strategy. It’s the tool.link to this section

A few years ago, many organizations approached AI with a pilot-first, strategy-later mindset. “We’ll try a chatbot and see what happens” was an all-too-common starting point. But that approach? It’s fading fast.

As Sheila McGee-Smith notes in the webinar, AI success in 2025 is no longer about adding new tools—it's about integrating them into your communications stack in ways that solve real business problems.

For example, Lisa Orford emphasizes how 8x8 is focused on embedding AI into the everyday experiences of agents and supervisors, not as a bolt-on, but as a strategic layer that enhances existing workflows. That’s where true scale begins: not with more tools, but with smarter orchestration of the ones you already have.

Real-time is the new table stakes.link to this section

Retailers, financial services firms, healthcare providers—no matter your industry, customers' expectations have shifted. They want help now, not “within 24 hours.” Not “in the order received.”

Real-time is the new baseline.

That’s why one of the most compelling moments in the webinar comes when Simon Black describes how Creovai leverages AI not just to analyze sentiment and behavior, but to act on it in real time. We're not talking about dashboards that summarize last week’s frustrations. We’re talking about AI that recognizes tone, urgency, and intent mid-interaction and surfaces the next-best action while the conversation is still happening.

For IT leaders, this demands rethinking your data infrastructure and integration architecture. For CX leaders, it means asking: Are your systems just collecting data, or are they putting it to work fast enough to make a difference?

Agents are still the heroes, but they need backup.link to this section

This panel discusses AI's role in the contact center with refreshing candor. It's not about replacing humans; it’s about equipping them.

As Lisa Orford puts it, “Agents are the heartbeat of CX—but they’re under pressure. AI should lift the weight, not add to it.”

Whether it’s coaching agents in the moment, reducing repetitive tasks, or giving supervisors visibility into performance trends without spreadsheet gymnastics, the goal is simple: make the people behind the experience more powerful, not more overwhelmed.

In practice, that means:

• Using AI to summarize conversations for faster resolution.
• Alerting supervisors in real time when a conversation goes off track.
• Empowering agents with quick access to product info, return policies, or order history—all without switching systems.

If your AI strategy doesn’t actively make life better for your team, it’s time to go back to the whiteboard.

AI that connects, not complicates.link to this section

Perhaps the strongest takeaway from the session is this: AI should be connective, not additive. It’s not about the flashiest NLP engine or the most “intelligent” chatbot. It’s about how you bring data, channels, and context together—across voice, chat, email, SMS, and more—to deliver experiences that feel seamless to the customer and sane to your team.

And that starts with unifying your communications platform. As this conversation makes clear, you don’t need more AI—you need better integration between the AI you choose and the systems you already trust.

Want the rest of the playbook?link to this section

This webinar doesn’t just scratch the surface. It gets into real examples—like how Creovai aligns human and virtual agents, how 8x8 builds AI directly into the contact center stack, and what metrics matter when evaluating AI’s impact across IT and CX teams.

If you're trying to:

• Cut through AI hype and make a clear business case.
• Connect siloed communication tools across your enterprise.
• Scale CX without burning out your agents or blowing up your stack.

… then this on-demand session is your next move.

👉 Watch “Beyond the Buzz: Turning AI into Real Insights” now and get the clarity your CX and IT strategy deserves.