Scaling Voice for a Cloud and AI-Driven World

This Industry Viewpoint was authored by Alison White, Head of Voice at Epsilon Telecommunications

Cloud and AI adoption is expanding the role of voice within business communications. These technologies are creating new opportunities for service providers to deliver more connected and intelligent customer experiences. Juniper Research forecasts that the global CPaaS market will grow by 60% between 2025 and 2029, reaching $48.1 billion. At the same time, AI automation is expanding the ways businesses can use voice, particularly for customer service.

As technology evolves, expectations around voice are shifting with it. Customers increasingly expect voice services to function as part of integrated communications, spanning collaboration, connectivity and telephony. Cavell forecasts that more than 40 million Microsoft Teams users across North America and Western Europe will be telephony-enabled by 2027. This growing demand gives service providers, channel partners and UCaaS and CPaaS providers scope to broaden their offerings, enter new markets and generate additional revenue.

However, providers looking to capitalise on this opportunity face a significant challenge. They need to deliver reliable voice services across multiple networks, while also managing different regulatory requirements and supporting new applications. The priority is finding a way to expand into new markets while keeping costs and operational demands under control.

The Complexity of Global Voice Delivery

Expanding voice services into new markets has historically meant building new international infrastructure and partnering with local carriers. This often left organisations managing a complex mix of regulatory obligations, technical requirements and country-specific carrier relationships.

As businesses increasingly transition away from legacy PSTN services, providers face greater pressure to move customers to cloud-based voice without compromising service performance. Managing global number portability, number management and PSTN replacement can make international migration more complex and costly.

The growing use of AI in customer communications is also placing new demands on voice infrastructure. By 2029, Gartner expects agentic AI to autonomously resolve 80% of common customer service issues without human intervention. When AI agents handle customer calls, they depend on reliable, real-time performance across every market a provider serves. As adoption grows, maintaining consistent service quality therefore becomes increasingly important. Poor audio can reduce speech-recognition accuracy and interrupt automated interactions.

Whether providers are supporting legacy migration or AI-driven services, customers expect the same level of performance. Calls can span multiple networks, locations and communications platforms, but service quality and reliability still need to remain consistent.

Managing this across international markets can create several challenges:

• Maintaining service quality: Delivering consistent performance across different networks, locations and communications platforms.
• Managing carrier relationships: Working with multiple carriers across different markets can add operational complexity and make service management more difficult.
• Maintaining visibility and control: A fragmented approach can make it harder to oversee service quality, pricing and margins.
• Supporting international demand: Providers need an operating model that can accommodate growth across markets without requiring significant additional infrastructure or operational complexity.

A More Connected Approach to Global Voice

For service providers and channel partners, the opportunity lies in simplifying the infrastructure that supports global voice services. Instead of running separate networks country by country, providers can partner for cloud voice and reach international markets through a consolidated network and operating model.

This approach allows providers to expand into new markets without building local voice infrastructure or managing multiple carrier relationships. It also simplifies PSTN migration, with cloud-based voice, international numbering and number portability available through one partner so customers can move off legacy services more efficiently.

A consolidated cloud voice platform helps providers maintain consistent call quality across global communications while supporting the real-time performance required for emerging AI voice applications. That reliability also lets providers add AI-powered services, such as voice bots and automated customer support, to their own portfolios. APIs and self-service tools can automate provisioning and service management, giving providers greater visibility and control as they scale their voice services and integrate them with cloud collaboration platforms.

This model offers a faster route into new markets with less investment and operational effort. Providers can retain control of pricing and the customer relationship while strengthening their wider communications proposition and creating recurring revenue opportunities.

Building Voice into the Growth Plan

Developing voice services is as much a commercial consideration as an operational one. A stronger voice offering can help providers increase recurring revenue, deepen customer relationships and expand their presence in new markets.

For regional providers and channel partners, a cloud voice partner can make international expansion a practical part of that growth plan.

As cloud and AI bring new uses for voice, providers will need infrastructure and operating models that can support that growth across markets. The right voice partner can help providers and channel partners put that in place while delivering the call quality and dependability their customers rely on.

About the Author

Alison White is Head of Voice & UCaaS at Epsilon Telecommunications, bringing extensive experience across the Unified Communications, telecommunications, audiovisual and IT sectors. She is responsible for driving the development and growth of Epsilon’s voice and unified communications business.

Alison has a broad background spanning sales, product management and business leadership, with expertise in proposition development, operations, project management and customer relationship management. Throughout her career, she has built new business divisions and teams, developed customer-focused solutions, and driven business growth through new business development, direct and indirect sales, and account management.

Learn more about Epsilon Telecommunications at https://www.epsilontel.com/.

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