This week, Salesforce’s call wrapped up the Q4 and full-year 2025 reporting season.
I continue to get questions, particularly from investors, on whether existing CX providers still have a meaningful opportunity in an AI-driven world, amid what some are calling the SaaSpocalypse.
So, this is a good moment to take stock across the public CCaaS and CRM players and assess how AI is reshaping their business:
Salesforce AgentForce Annual Recurring Revenue (ARR) reached $800M, up 169% year over year, representing 2% of total revenue.
ServiceNow Now Assist Net New Annual Contract Value (NNACV) was $600M, growing at a 67% run rate, about 4.5% of total revenue.
NiCE AI and Self-Service ARR reached $328M, growing at a 66% run rate, representing 13% of interaction management revenue.
Genesys Cloud AI ARR surpassed $250M, growing at a 60% run rate, representing 10% of total revenue.
Five9 Enterprise AI's annual run rate revenue crossed $100M, growing at a 50% run rate, representing 9% of revenue.
These datapoints represent different metrics and, so, should be taken with a grain of salt. They mix revenue and ARR, and forward growth rates are not always disclosed, but the numbers tell a consistent story.
Incumbents from all corners of the CX market are fully participating in the AI opportunity and generating material revenue from it.
This aligns with feedback from enterprise surveys, consistently identifying customer service as a top priority for AI deployment.
Of course, these figures are dwarfed by OpenAI’s $20B and Anthropic’s $5B ARR, but only a handful of mega AI players exist at this stage. AWS and Google do not break out AI revenue, which likely falls in similar ranges, and Microsoft’s 15 million paid Copilot seats put it at a comparable level. Beyond them, Databricks is estimated at $1.4B, with all other players below $1B.
Stories of the doomed fate of seat-based SaaS vendors are premature. Another misconception to discard is that CCaaS providers are poised to become irrelevant. Managing customer conversations at the company’s front door gives these providers a clear advantage.
Of course, incumbents are/will be challenged by new entrants, but that is a discussion for another post. For now, my call is to view this market through new lenses.
Instead of fixating on seat-based models, investors should focus on how these companies are driving incremental AI revenue, transforming their platforms for the AI paradigm, and securing their positioning as a strategic AI provider that enterprises rely on for mission-critical use cases, not just for commoditizing AI features.