SOFIAH NICHOLE SALIVIONews Editor
8×8 has released updates to its Platform for CX aimed at carrying customer context across contact centre, communications and AI interactions.
The additions include Customer 360 in Agent Workspace, new deployment options for AI agents in AI Studio, and a single voice interaction timeline in JourneyIQ. They are intended to reduce the need for customers to repeat information when moving between channels or between human and automated support.
Customer 360 brings a customer’s interaction history into a single view for agents using 8×8 Agent Workspace. It draws on a shared memory layer across the platform and can include AI-generated sentiment and topic insights where speech analytics is enabled.
That means agents can review previous contacts without switching between tabs or systems. This should help staff resolve issues more quickly and give customers a more continuous experience.
In AI Studio, businesses can now build an AI agent once and use it across voice, SMS, WhatsApp, 8×8 Work and web channels. Returning callers can be recognised at the start of an interaction, while the same AI tools in 8×8 Contact Centre can assist human agents by surfacing answers and recording notes during live conversations.
JourneyIQ, available through the 8×8 App Store, now shows voice interactions across 8×8 Engage, 8×8 Work, 8×8 Contact Centre and 8×8 AI Studio on a single timeline. It also includes a visual path map designed to show where calls are transferred, stalled or dropped.
Another part of the update concerns Salesforce users. As Salesforce phases out Open CTI, 8×8’s Chrome extension for Salesforce will continue to support screen pop, interaction logging and automated record creation across voice and other channels, without requiring an additional licence.
This is intended to keep call context flowing into customer relationship management systems as Salesforce changes its telephony framework.
Outside the contact centre, 8×8 has introduced Call as Company for users of 8×8 Engage. The feature lets outbound calls display a company number rather than an individual employee’s work number, while administrators can control which number is shown.
In Singapore, 8×8 now also offers RCS Business Messaging through Singtel. The service allows businesses to send verified messages with media and action buttons, with SMS fallback for devices that do not support RCS.
Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8, said the updates reflect rising expectations among customers that previous interactions should be visible at the start of a new conversation.
“Customers expect whoever picks up, including an AI agent, to already know what came before,” said Hunter Middleton, Chief Product Officer at 8×8.
He said the latest product changes are intended to make that continuity standard across the platform.
“These updates make that the default, so when a customer reaches someone, the history is already in front of them. Customers now expect that continuity from every interaction,” Middleton said.
The announcement highlights how communications software suppliers are trying to unify contact centre, unified communications and application interfaces around shared customer records and AI tools. For providers such as 8×8, the commercial aim is to reduce fragmentation between channels while keeping customer data and conversation history in a single system.
8×8 said its platform is developed with internal governance policies and privacy-by-design principles for customer data. It added that the broader platform already uses contextual memory across applications, channels, human agents and AI systems.
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Image: Hunter Middleton
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