• Collaboration Technology
• Unified Communications & Collaboration

Charting the Future of UCC: Key Takeaways from Enterprise Connect 2025

In March, we sent our trusty team member David Kerr down to Florida to soak up the sun and gather intel about what’s happening in the Unified Communications and Collaboration space in 2025 at Enterprise Connect. 

And he certainly delivered. After attending many exciting keynotes, participating in eye-opening discussions and exploring the showroom floor, Dave returned home to Canada with a fresh new outlook about where we should be focusing our attention, and what organizations need to look out for going forward.

About Enterprise Connect

Enterprise Connect is an annual conference hosted in North America that focuses on IT and collaboration trends and solutions. Attendees can expect to see new platform updates and integrations, learn about new user challenges and hear insights about what’s happening in the world of Customer Experience (CX). 

This year, the theme of the show was Charting Your Course, with the intention to arm IT and UCC professionals with the strategies and insights they need to successfully harness the power of AI and digital transformation in the workplace. Popular solution partners like Microsoft, Zoom, Cisco, Google, RingCentral and more hosted innovative discussions and keynotes diving deep into how AI is influencing their product offerings to improve CX and enhance how organizations work. 

The 2025 event was held at the Gaylord Palms Resort and Convention Center in Orlando, Florida. The event space hosted 150+ exhibitors and over 5000 professionals visiting from across North America. 

Meet Dave

David Kerr is the Lead Link of our Unified Communications and Collaboration (UCC) team and UCC Solutions Architect. His main area of focus is enabling organizations to connect and collaborate better by properly integrating their communication platforms and enhancing their workflows for a more seamless experience. 

In recent years, Dave has been diligently keeping up with the latest discussions surrounding AI and resulting solutions being developed and shared in the market. 

While attending Enterprise Connect he looked forward to seeing how major platforms are continuing to implement AI and navigating hot topic areas like security, user adoption and customer experience. 

Maturity of Collaboration Platforms

Right off the bat, one of the takeaways that had us the most curious was the claim that collaboration platforms have reached maturity. The performance kinks have been ironed out, the security concerns have been addressed, and manageability and accessibility are no longer major roadblocks for the majority of users. Even the ability to customize the user experience has been implemented into most platform packages. 

Which begs the question, where does UCC go from here?

2025 Trends

AI
The obvious next phase of innovation on everyone’s radar was, of course, AI. Now that collaboration platforms have “matured”, they serve as a foundation for a more personalized experience that can be custom-built using AI tools and integrations that better suit the needs of your users. 

Dave noted that there were 3 main themes surrounding discussions of AI at this year’s Enterprise connect: 

• Pervasive AI
  More frequently, AI is being embedded across all aspects of communication and collaboration within platforms and meeting rooms—from agent assistance in contact centres, to features enhancing personal productivity like meeting summaries and task management.
  .
  This is a highly significant trend as these tools promise to automate tasks, improve efficiency, and enhance customer interactions through personalization and real-time support. They can also provide valuable insights through analytics, representing further evolution with the potential for proactive problem-solving.

• Agentic AI
  “Agentic AI”, as described by Dave, is like having your own personal assistant that transforms your workflows for better productivity. These types of AI tools exhibit agency—meaning they can make decisions, take actions, and pursue goals without constant human input, based on long term pattern recognition of your behaviours and routines.
  .
  These tools can remember and suggest contextualized information based on past conversations and activities, perform low-impact but time consuming tasks in your workflow, and even “converse” with other sources or people in order to action their assigned tasks.

• Data-Driven Insights
  One of the most attractive features of AI is that it allows organizations to leverage analytics to gain deeper understanding of communication patterns, space utilization, team member performance, and customer interactions.This ability enables organizations to make data-driven decisions to improve their services and processes at a faster rate, leading to increased ROIs and enhanced user and customer satisfaction.

Integrated UCaaS and CCaaS
In relation to how enterprises are integrating and leveraging AI, recent years have shown that there is also a hunger for single-provider, integrated UCaaS (Unified Communications as a Service) and CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) solutions. 

During the conference, analysts noted that between 20-30% of solution deployments in 2025 are integrating UCaaS and CCaaS, and predict this number will rise to 45-55% by 2027. 

While it was previously not uncommon for these solutions to be chosen and implemented separately—due to the perceived difference in use cases—today, organizations are recognizing the benefits of having a single repository for all communication data between these platforms.

Why this recent shift?

• Cross-functional Decision Making
  Traditionally, organizations have often viewed UCaaS decisions as internally focused. Meaning these are tools that team members use to connect and collaborate with each other; company meetings, direct messaging, information sharing, etc. CCaaS has then been considered externally focused, used by customer-facing agents to communicate with clients and manage CRM (Customer Relationship Management) databases; phone services, email and chatbots are examples of what can be included in your CCaaS toolbox.
  .
  While both of these use cases remain true, today contact centers are taking on a bigger and more prominent role in overall business performance and decisions. Organizations are recognizing that solutions that enable cross-communication between contact center agents, subject matter experts and customers leads to higher customer satisfaction, faster problem solving and easier access to information for all team members.Which leads to the next key factor:

• Outcomes > Use Cases
  Focusing on the outcomes of an organization’s chosen tech stack rather than the individual use cases across different teams allows decision makers to come together to achieve common goals:

• • Agents are experiencing improved clarity regarding what their customers’ needs are, and can solve them faster with easier access to information. 
  • The success rates of adoption among users, change management and internal training of new platform tools and integrations are increasing.
  • Enterprises overall are seeing 20%+ in savings by choosing single-vendor solutions that meet the needs of both sides of their business. 
  • Streamlined workflows are allowing for improved call efficiency, increased productivity and faster innovation, combining to deliver a better customer experience. 

Hybrid Work Models
Though it’s been a popular topic of conversation for several years now, hybrid work is still a key trend being discussed at Enterprise Connect in 2025. Though there are many ways to define and interpret what hybrid work means, there are some factors that need to be considered by all workplaces when implementing this model. 

• Equitability
  Technology requirements are being shaped by the ways that teams are working, rather than workflows being shaped by the tools that are available. Because of this, there is a large focus on ensuring that users who are working remotely have the same quality of experience as those who are working in the office.
  .
  This means having solutions in place that enable information sharing, enhance communication, and give everyone the opportunity to participate in collaborative discussions.
  .
  What does this look like in 2025?

• Evolution of Meeting Spaces
  Physical meeting rooms are becoming more technologically advanced with AI-powered features, enhancing engagement and inclusivity. More frequently we are seeing AI-cameras that track speakers, eliminate distractions and rearrange display real estate to give everyone equal spotlights.
  .
  Beam-forming microphone technology enhances voices over background noise and emphasizes the current active speaker(s) or presenter(s) to ensure listeners are receiving information clearly, regardless of if they are directly in the room, or participating from the far-end of a video meeting.
  .
  Most video conferencing platforms now also offer AI capabilities such as real-time captioning and translation, as well as concise meeting summaries that include key points and action items for easy meeting follow-up.

• The Importance of Human Connection
  Despite technological advancements, the need for human connection and culture remains crucial. Organizations are encouraged to implement tools that enable spontaneous connection and collaboration, and keep channels open for team members to share ideas from anywhere, at any time.
  .
  Building high levels of trust and rapport among team members not only creates opportunity for innovation and better problem solving, but also maintains a positive employee experience!

Security and Governance
Despite the claim that platforms are mature and security risks are significantly lower than they once were, they will never be at zero. While the platforms themselves are increasing security measures such as firewalls, password and two-factor authentication and data encryption, they cannot prevent user error or external threats from happening—they can only continue to increase their defensive measures. 

These risks continue to place pressure on enterprises to take accountability and create actionable frameworks that protect both their user and customer data from being lost or stolen. 

Escalating Cybersecurity Threats
External threats such as phishing, ransomware and AI weaponization are only getting more sophisticated as platforms and other communication tools continue to enhance their own security measures. 

Having safety protocols in place like frequently requiring users to update passwords and participate in mandatory phishing tests are still encouraged for organizations, as well as increasing training on how to store and share information safely within your chosen tools. 

AI Governance
While rarely ill-intentioned, a lot of security risks still come from within organizations themselves. We are still at the beginning of learning everything AI is and will become capable of, which is both exciting and a little scary. This experimental era of exploring the available tools and all they have to offer creates a desire to try every app, extension and website on the market. Trying new things is all well and fun but often overlooks concerns about data safety and privacy when there are no set guidelines surrounding how to approach them. 

Many experts at Enterprise Connect were imploring business managers to create clear frameworks and protocols for how AI is used in the workplace, with proper training and sanctions in place. These frameworks should include information about what tools are approved or not approved, level of accessibility based on required roles and workflows, checklists to ensure information security, and who in the organization users can speak to for further advice or permissions. 

Monitoring and Visibility
Another way organizations are beginning to stay on-top of AI usage and security risks is through monitoring platforms. These tools provide visibility into how AI and other technology is being used, and also aid in detecting potential policy violations and understanding adoption patterns.

Considerations for Organizations 

At the end of Dave’s time at Enterprise Connect, he returned with some key takeaways to share with our team and with our customers as we continue to design human-centric solutions: 

Listen to customers and leverage analytics
The needs of your business should reflect the needs of your customers. But in order to truly understand what those needs are, you need to go beyond surface level. 

Asking the right questions is a good start, but having technology tools that both enhance the customer experience, and enable better connection and collaboration across the various teams in your organization allows for an exponential difference in gathering accurate customer data. 

There are also a variety of AI integrations and analytics platforms that show how your contact agents are interacting with customers—such as frequency of interactions, method of contact (phone, email, chatbot),  length of conversations, and number of interactions required to resolve a customer transaction. Many of these tools also offer concise, contextual summaries of past conversations and suggest next steps or solution paths in real time based on the conversation being had with the customer. 

These capabilities are great for information sharing and building workflows that are both more efficient and more engaging to deliver the best possible customer experience that feels personalized and productive. 

Invest in user adoption and training
There are a lot of factors that affect the ROI of your workplace technology, but one of the biggest and most controllable is how your team members are using these tools. 

User adoption starts well before the implementation of new tech and/or workflows. Socializing the idea and gaining buy-in is the first step in assessing confidence levels, knowledge gaps and approaches needed to properly educate team members about incoming changes. This helps to curb resentment about not being included in big decisions, and builds excitement and curiosity to learn. 

There are a lot of ways to approach this step, such as including team members with a range of different skill sets and use cases when testing new solutions, and/or having internal champions and power-users from different areas of expertise to help show and explain the capabilities of new tools. 

It’s important to approach training in stages, and have a proper, concrete plan that details the timeline for transition, who is qualified and responsible for delivering training, and which teams or roles will have access first. It can also be beneficial to create custom training programs for different teams so as to not overwhelm anyone with information that may not be necessary or come across as irrelevant when it’s actually not. 

The important thing to remember is that training requires time, empathy and must be ongoing in order to create a confident and successful team. Continuously checking in and actively listening to the responses of your users minimizes mis-use of tools and user errors, while maximizing trust and efficiency. 

Focus on the Outcomes
With so many solutions available offering infinite possibilities, it’s easy to point at everything you see and say “I want that, too.” 

This is an expensive and often disruptive way to strategize and implement new tools into your workplace.

Alternatively, refusing to take advantage of innovative new solutions like AI out of fear or negative assumption will also lead to major setbacks. 

Instead, talk to your customers, your users and your stakeholders to determine the overall target outcomes for your organization, and select your tech accordingly. The tools you choose should enhance the ways your teams are already working, not confuse them by forcing new learning curves for the sake of “everyone else is doing this.”

Sharing a common goal is a great way to encourage all users to participate in learning and using new tools in order to experience positive results. 

What’s next?

Enterprise Connect 2025 made one thing abundantly clear: the future of Unified Communications and Collaboration isn’t just about the tools themselves—it’s about how we use them to deliver positive outcomes and provide an excellent experience for both users and customers. 

As platforms reach maturity and AI becomes more embedded in our daily workflows, the opportunity lies in creating seamless, personalized experiences that empower users, enhance customer interactions, and support business goals.

Dave’s time at Enterprise Connect reminded us that behind every platform upgrade, AI integration, or technology tool is a bigger goal: helping people connect better, communicate more clearly, and solve problems more effectively. And that’s exactly where our focus will remain as we move ahead in 2025! 

Stay connected with us:
Follow ET Group on LinkedIn
Subscribe to ET Group’s YouTube Channel