Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS)
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based platform that provides the infrastructure, channels, and tools for managing customer interactions, now increasingly integrated with AI agents.
What Is CCaaS?
Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) is a cloud-based model for delivering the technology infrastructure that powers customer service operations. Instead of building and maintaining on-premises contact center hardware and software, organizations subscribe to a CCaaS platform that provides omnichannel routing (phone, chat, email, social), agent desktop tools, workforce management, analytics, and quality monitoring — all as a service.
Major CCaaS providers include Genesys, Five9, NICE, Talkdesk, and cloud offerings from legacy vendors like Cisco and Avaya. These platforms handle the infrastructure layer of customer service, while AI platforms like Maven AGI provide the intelligence layer.
How CCaaS and AI Agents Work Together
CCaaS and AI agent platforms serve complementary roles:
- CCaaS handles infrastructure: Call routing, agent desktop, queue management, workforce scheduling, and channel connectivity
- AI agents handle intelligence: Understanding customer intent, reasoning through problems, accessing backend systems, and resolving issues autonomously
The most effective deployments integrate AI agents into the CCaaS platform so that AI and human agents work within the same ecosystem, sharing context and routing seamlessly between them.
Market context: 89% of contact centers utilize AI chatbots and 79% employ voice agents. The convergence of CCaaS infrastructure with AI intelligence is the dominant trend in contact center technology, with Gartner predicting agentic AI will autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues by 2029.
The Maven Advantage: Integrates with Your CCaaS
Maven AGI integrates with leading CCaaS and customer service platforms including Genesys, Zendesk, Salesforce, Intercom, HubSpot, Freshdesk, Front, and ServiceNow. Maven Voice connects to telephony infrastructure via Twilio, RingCentral, Cisco, and Zendesk Talk using SIP, PSTN, and WebRTC. This means organizations add AI intelligence to their existing CCaaS without rip-and-replace — Maven works alongside your current infrastructure.
Maven proof point: Maven AGI's 100+ out-of-the-box integrations enable deployment alongside virtually any CCaaS platform, with typical deployments going live in one to six weeks rather than the months required for platform migrations.
Frequently Asked Questions
Do we need to replace our CCaaS to add AI?
No. Modern AI platforms integrate with existing CCaaS infrastructure rather than replacing it. This preserves your existing investment in routing, workforce management, and agent tools while adding AI resolution capabilities on top.
Is CCaaS the same as a helpdesk?
Not exactly. Helpdesk platforms (Zendesk, Freshdesk) focus on ticket management and knowledge bases. CCaaS platforms focus on real-time communication infrastructure (phone, chat, routing). Many organizations use both — a helpdesk for async ticket management and CCaaS for real-time interactions.
Will AI replace CCaaS platforms?
AI is augmenting CCaaS, not replacing it. The infrastructure needs — call routing, agent desktop, workforce management — remain even as AI handles more interactions. The CCaaS role evolves from managing agent interactions to orchestrating human-AI collaboration.
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