theCUBE Research hosts Bob Laliberte of theCUBE Research and Zeus Kerravala of ZK Research as they examine how artificial intelligence, AI, moves from pilot to production in contact centers. Kerravala and Laliberte bring deep contact center expertise and discuss the shift from assistants to autonomous agents, vendor strategies from Cisco, Talkdesk, Zoom and Five9 and the operational capabilities required to deliver consistent and scalable customer experience, CX improvements. The conversation emphasizes practical approaches to measurable CX value and the governance, data quality and change management needed for production deployments. Key takeaways include prioritizing issue resolution over automation and measuring impact with metrics such as cost per interaction and Net Promoter Score, NPS. Kerravala states that enterprise-grade AI agents must operate within governance, escalation and explainability frameworks; they emphasize clear policies and oversight to maintain trust and compliance. Laliberte highlights that success depends on high data quality, change management and executive sponsorship to move solutions from experimentation into repeatable and trustworthy production deployments; they underscore operational readiness and rigorous performance measurement as critical factors.