Last week, Infobip published its 2026 Trends — a forward-looking view of how AI, rich messaging, and ecosystems will reshape customer engagement. For anyone following the work inside the CPaaS Acceleration Alliance, the direction will feel familiar.
As a long-standing Accelerate Member of CPaaSAA, Infobip has been deeply involved in shaping the industry narrative — including contributing strategic insights to our State of CPaaS 2025 report. Their newly published trends show a global CPaaS leader leaning fully into the shift we’ve been mapping across our working groups, Circle sessions, and the Case Directory: the rise of Intelligent Engagement.
Below is a look at how Infobip’s trends reinforce the direction CPaaS is taking in 2026.
1. AI Agents Take Over the Customer Journey — Exactly as Predicted
Infobip expects AI-powered agents to handle up to 95% of customer interactions by 2026.
Not chatbots.
Not task-based flows.
But full agentic AI that is multimodal, autonomous, and capable of handling end-to-end tasks — with humans stepping in only when needed.
This aligns perfectly with the Intelligent Engagement model that has emerged from our community:
- voice AI
- vCons as the data layer
- network intelligence
- continuous learning loops
- human-in-the-loop escalation
2026 will be the year when AI agents become the primary interface for customer engagement.
2. WhatsApp, RCS, and Super Apps Become the New Experience Layer
Infobip highlights WhatsApp and RCS evolving into super apps that support browsing, payment, booking, delivery scheduling, and customer service — without ever leaving the conversation .
This strongly mirrors the CPaaSAA belief that:
“The channel is now the journey.”
Rich messaging becomes the UX surface.
CPaaS becomes the orchestration engine.
AI becomes the brain behind the journey.
This shift is especially visible in retail, healthcare, finance, and logistics — exactly the sectors where the Case Directory shows the highest maturity and momentum.
3. Privacy-First, Domain-Specific, On-Prem AI Models
Instead of relying only on large generic AI models, Infobip sees fast growth in:
- domain-specific LLMs running on-prem, edge, or sovereign environments with strong compliance and privacy controls
For regulated industries, this is not an option — it is the foundation.
This matches the direction CPaaSAA has been highlighting in:
- AI-ready networks
- sovereign AI stacks
- telco data architectures
- agentic AI
- security and identity
As telcos and CPaaS players increasingly become the trusted fabric of enterprise AI, this trend becomes a massive opportunity.
4. The Biggest Challenge Isn’t AI — It’s Data
Infobip is clear:
The bottleneck in deploying advanced AI is fragmented data — how to unify, clean, and activate internal and first-party data while staying compliant and privacy-first .
This is exactly the barrier that appears in our Intelligent Engagement maturity model:
siloed identity disconnected interactions broken handovers parallel systems incomplete customer context
AI is only as strong as the data behind it.
And in CPaaS, data is the engagement layer.
5. Co-Creation and Ecosystem Innovation Move to Centre Stage
Infobip closes with a strong commitment to co-creating solutions with partners and customers .
This is fully aligned with the CPaaSAA model where:
members co-develop insights research is shared case studies are openly contributed working groups shape the narrative innovation flows across the ecosystem
It’s encouraging to see a global leader like Infobip placing ecosystems — not just products — at the heart of their 2026 strategy.
As one of our top-tier Accelerate Members, Infobip continues to lead the industry forward and push the boundaries of what CPaaS can become across AI, network intelligence, and omnichannel experiences.
The Signal Is Clear: 2026 Is When Intelligent Engagement Goes Mainstream
Across the trends Infobip outlined, a unified industry direction is emerging:
**CPaaS is no longer about communications infrastructure.
It is about intelligence, context, data, and orchestration.**
In 2026 we will see:
- AI agents as the default customer interface
- rich messaging becoming an all-in-one commerce and service layer
- data unification as the foundation for advanced automation
- sovereign and domain-specific AI models gaining traction
- telco networks becoming active participants in AI decisions
- ecosystems overtaking standalone tools
Infobip’s trends validate and amplify the direction our community has been building together.
As we head into 2026, the alignment between leading players, CPaaSAA members, and the broader ecosystem is stronger than ever.
Intelligent Engagement isn’t the future — it’s the next chapter of CPaaS.