ETR Insights presents an interview with the Chief Technology Officer of a large business services firm, who discusses how targeted investments in artificial intelligence, unified communications, cybersecurity, and CRM modernization are driving greater operational efficiency, improved employee satisfaction, and competitive differentiation. Despite broader market caution and a generally modest IT spending environment – characterized as "flat to maybe a slight increase" – this organization is notably ramping up its AI investments by approximately 80% year-over-year. The CTO emphasizes the critical role of meticulous change management, pragmatic vendor selection, and disciplined ROI tracking, offering valuable insights for enterprise technology leaders navigating today's complex technology landscape.

Vendors Mentioned: Arctic Wolf / Avaya / Cisco / CrowdStrike / Google (Gemini, Google Voice) / KnowBe4 / Microsoft (Copilot, Defender, Dynamics, Teams) / Mitel / Proofpoint / RingCentral (AI Receptionist) / Salesforce (Agentforce) / SentinelOne / Whippy AI / Workday / Zoom

I. Dramatic Growth in AI Investments Leads to Early Wins, Additional Evaluations

Whippy AI Reshapes Workflows. The CTO detailed AI-driven transformation within recruiting operations. Initial experimentation included generative tools like ChatGPT and Google's Gemini, used to assist recruiters with administrative tasks like job descriptions and email copy. However, deeper and more impactful integration followed through a strategic partnership with enterprise AI provider Whippy AI. Leveraging Whippy's voice-enabled, agentic AI technology, the company automated early-stage recruiting tasks such as candidate outreach, screening, and scheduling, significantly reshaping recruiter workflows. "Generative AI helped with emails and job descriptions, but the real value came from voice and agentic AI tools – automating top-of-funnel tasks completely changed how [our] recruiters operate."

CRM + Agentforce Intrigue. Meanwhile, the company is actively evaluating enterprise-grade CRM platforms like Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics, and Workday to transition from an internally developed legacy system. AI feature potential matters in these evaluations, and Salesforce’s Agentforce stands out, described enthusiastically by the CTO as "very intriguing, a fun one to study. The possibilities there are great, putting more power in the hands of sellers."

Still, integration complexities present challenges with limited prior investment into Salesforce’s broader ecosystem. The CTO explained that although Salesforce and Agentforce offer strong value propositions, the scale of necessary ecosystem shifts is substantial. Microsoft Copilot, while acknowledged as potentially valuable, is currently deprioritized due to perceived high initial investment requirements and a perception of less immediately obvious operational benefits than Whippy or Agentforce.

ETR Data: In the January 2025 Technology Spending Intentions Survey (TSIS), Salesforce’s data set showed signs of improvement, driven by tempering negativity in large cuts across core Enterprise Apps and Cloud Computing sectors. In April 2025 data, customers have modestly revised Salesforce spend intent down vs. January. Notwithstanding, Net Score remains above 2H24 lows and spend has stabilized in key product areas among larger organizations.

AI Labor Impact. While technology integration proceeded smoothly, significant challenges emerged around employee adoption, with our guest highlighting that "the absolute most difficult piece is change management—the people side of what we're doing." The primary goal of AI implementation isn't headcount reduction, given the naturally high turnover (60–100% annually) inherent to the recruiting field, but rather improving recruiter job satisfaction, reducing burnout, and ultimately enhancing employee retention.

ROI for AI. This organization’s 80% spike in AI investments underscores the velocity and veracity of the emerging market. At the same time, their investment level is an outlier when compared to data from our November 2024 and January 2025 AI Product Series, which show only 5-6% of organizations increasing AI budgets at an interval of 51% or more, with most growing between 1% and 30% year-over-year.

Our guest notes that such a dramatic ramp-up is “easy to do when you're not investing a lot, and now you are.” Even so, disciplined ROI measurement guides every AI investment decision at this organization. “We invest in nothing without having a clear ROI, and we follow it all the way through." To this CTO, it seems that regimented accounting of ROI is second nature; on the other hand, over a quarter of AI survey takers noted that their organization is not currently measuring ROI for AI undertakings.

Cautious Optimism for the Future. Navigating through this technology’s nascency, our guest expressed cautious optimism about the future direction of technology, urging a balanced approach to innovation. He described his team as "fast followers" rather than early adopters, carefully leveraging lessons from industry experimentation — something he admitted is easier to do in the context of such rapid innovation.

He emphasized the need for people-centric leadership within enterprise technology to guide employees through the evolving landscape: "The exciting change is really going to be happening with people...helping people walk through possibilities and grow them into their next opportunity partnering with technology and AI. We're fast becoming more ‘people-people’ than technology folks."

ETR Data: These remarks are in line with preliminary data from ETR’s April 2025 Macro Views Survey regarding organizational innovation pace, which shows that 51% of respondents are Strategically adopting AI with a ‘measured approach’, while another 11% are Aggressively investing in emerging technologies to stay ahead, paving the way for “fast followers” like our guest’s organization (N = 1741).

II. Maturing UCaaS Market is Stable but Further Consolidation is Possible

Teams Internally, RingCentral Externally. About eight years ago, the firm fully transitioned external communications from legacy Avaya and Mitel phone systems to an integrated split between RingCentral (external use cases) and Microsoft Teams (internal collaboration and communication).

Our guest says that “RingCentral has been a great partner at a great price point.” The primary reason the organization doesn’t use RingCentral for internal communications is because of their existing obligations to Microsoft. “It doesn't make sense for us to not utilize that in our ecosystem.” For contact-center adjacent use cases, he says that “Microsoft still has a long way to go...the RingCentral platform has enough feature-functionality to satisfy our needs…Teams just wasn't even close.”

The team is currently "digging in deep" into potential AI applications for both Teams and RingCentral, but the CTO acknowledged, "there isn't anything that has really…jumped out and said we need to pay attention to this yet." Still, he noted that they are “kicking the tires” with RingCentral’s AI Receptionist and assessing integration potential.

Vendor Dynamics. Our guest provided an informed outlook on vendor strengths and how the UCaaS landscape might evolve over the next few years:

• Teams: He expects continued improvement and deeper integration within Microsoft's ecosystem. Teams will appeal mostly to organizations looking to "round out their ecosystem," especially if their needs "might be a little more basic," calling back to shortfalls with external-facing requirements.
• RingCentral: Despite less traction than some of the current leaders, he thinks that RingCentral is "still an 800-pound gorilla" in the space, emphasizing their proactive efforts "to reinvent themselves to stay relevant," and projecting that they have "a long road ahead of them" as a market staple.
• Zoom: He sees Zoom remaining primarily video-focused, positing that they "haven't been able to compete in the phone system space as well," while asserting that they still "have a play."
• Google Voice: He categorized Google Voice as a niche provider, suited mainly for SMBs deeply embedded within Google's ecosystem, stating succinctly: "If somebody is all Google, that makes sense...but outside of that—not a lot."
• 8x8: Beyond the core, household names, he acknowledged that there are a handful of other vendors that maintain a foothold in the market. For example, he described 8x8 as "still a player, still strong," but (similar to Google) viewed them and other mid-market vendors as primarily "SMB, less enterprise."

For the most part, he thinks that the existing vendor spread in the market is relatively stable, but he wouldn’t be surprised at small movements towards consolidation, mirroring trends seen "over the past five or six years."

ETR Data: Pictured above is ETR’s 2024 Observatory Scope for UCaaS, depicting market leaders in the product area. Positioning for the ETR Observatory for UCaaS was determined purely by ETR’s surveys, powered by the ETR Community. Later this month, we will be releasing our second annual Observatory for UCaaS with year-over-year comps on applicable metrics for the first time. While you’re waiting, review the full 2024 UCaaS research bundle.

No Wires, No Worries. This CTO describes physical infrastructure management at local branches as streamlined and highly reliable, featuring standardized business-grade broadband, minimal onsite hardware, and cellular backups enabling rapid issue resolution—averaging just 46 minutes. Despite these cloud-driven simplifications, he acknowledges persistent cultural attachments to physical telephony hardware within his industry, though this is gradually diminishing. He elaborated: "Phones on desks have largely become a thing of the past. It took kicking and screaming initially due to emotional attachments, but we're well past that now." Today, employee setups are minimal and highly portable, typically consisting of laptops, dual monitors, and Bluetooth headsets integrated with Teams and RingCentral.

III. Additional Commentary: Information Security

SentinelOne – Quality Product, Affordable Price. In endpoint protection, SentinelOne was decisively selected over competitors CrowdStrike and Microsoft Defender, primarily due to better cost-effectiveness and simplified management. The CTO stated, "CrowdStrike economically didn't make sense. SentinelOne was a better play—a quality product at an affordable price." At the time of adoption, he says, Microsoft’s offering was not yet up-to-snuff.

ETR Data: The model above shows Net Scores for Microsoft, SentinelOne, and CrowdStrike within the Information Security sector since JAN23. Though CrowdStrike continues to fight an upward battle since last July’s outage, recent spending decline has entered SentinelOne’s data set (driven by fewer adoptions and new churn). Microsoft remains the strongest of the three, though it is important to note that Microsoft’s spending intentions include all product spend within the sector, and not just Defender.

Beyond endpoint protection, the company's cybersecurity approach is comprehensive, employing best-of-breed solutions for specialized needs, including Proofpoint for email security, Arctic Wolf for managed detection and response (MDR), and Cisco for network security. He also indicated selective reliance on Microsoft’s native security tools, specifically around identifying and managing data flows containing sensitive information but expressed continued preference for specialized providers to ensure comprehensive coverage across the organization's security landscape.

When asked about standout security investments, our guest mentioned KnowBe4 with tongue-in-cheek enthusiasm, emphasizing that extensive employee awareness training is essential to their broader security strategy. "Where’s our biggest investment? KnowBe4—just training the individual that’s out there."