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Happy new year from Continuant! 2025 promises to be a big year for the world in many ways, and business communications is certainly no exception. We’ve compiled a list of the top 10 emerging trends to look out for as the years go on, including the end of the PSTN, the continued ascension of AI, and new changes in hybrid work. 
Also referred to as the Copper Sunset, the PSTN switch off hits the United States in December of 2025. This marks a global shutdown of the public switched telephone network, and the mass decommissioning of copper lines.
Where before organizations could afford to take time with migrating from legacy telephony to cloud-based solutions, that won’t be the case after these lines are decommissioned. The migration timetable is much shorter now, which will require careful planning to avoid disruptions.
Organizations still relying on PBXs will need to make the migration this year, replacing them with new solutions such as Microsoft Teams, Cisco Webex, Zoom, and Ring Central. Such PBX users could also benefit from a migration partner like Continuant, and a platform designed to streamline the process like Continuant Connect.
AI and automation are set to radically change the world at large in 2025. Unified Communications and Customer Experience platforms are no exception. While we’re not looking to replace customer service agents with robots, advancements in AI and automation will change a lot about how users of UCaaS and CCaaS solutions operate.
Applications like Microsoft Teams and Zoom already have AI powered meeting assistants that help with real time translations and meeting transcripts. Zoom AI Companion can resolve next steps and action items, and Microsoft Copilot’s features go even further than meetings, including things like image generation.
Along with streamlining meetings, AI is getting better at interfacing with customers. As it stands, AI can manage very basic customer interactions, but as it gains more information and sophistication, it becomes capable of resolving more and more complex issues. Contact center AI can now create more personalized and timely responses, and it’s only going to get better.
For CPaaS solutions, AI will be helpful in maintaining a consistent experience across disparate platforms and channels. Seamlessly connecting voice and messaging technology will be easier than ever in 2025.
The war for in-office and remote work rages on, and it looks like it’s raging won’t stop in 2025. Employees want remote, executives want in-office. Hybrid work is the current compromise both sides operate under, but it’ll be interesting to see what changes in the coming year.
Regardless of who wins this conflict, technology continues to evolve to support a hybrid work environment. Meeting assistants help automate parts of the meeting process on modern collaboration platforms and can even extend into the room itself. Smart meeting rooms automate cameras, microphones, and noise cancellation to make meetings more effective than ever before.
Of course, if remote work expands in the coming years, we may begin seeing even smarter meetings rooms, or less meeting rooms overall.
Another hybrid work trend we can see emerging is asynchronous videos. These can often replace meetings, saving everyone time and possibly even headaches. It’s especially helpful for remote team members in different time zones.
UCaaS platforms have been around for a while, so much so in fact that some in the industry thought to run a wellness check on them in 2024. We’ve learned since then that UC is, in fact, not dead, and is positioned to be stronger than ever in 2025.
One thing that’s going to make UCaaS more effective than ever is the growing access to private 5G networks. This provides extra bandwidth, security, and flexibility for organizations with UCaaS with high demand on their networks and can take platforms like Microsoft Teams and Cisco Webex to the next level.
With less lag and disruptions, the headaches of real-time collaboration may become a thing of the past as 2025 wears on.
Late 2024 saw the Salt Typhoon attack on the US government, and 2025 is likely to see its own cybersecurity attacks, or at least attempts. Salt Typhoon was a wakeup call not just for the government, but also for organizations all over the world, telling them cybersecurity was something that needed to be planned out and taken more seriously than ever.
Microsoft suffered as well, with several data breaches in 2023 and 24 from international attackers. This put numerous customers and employees at risk, including senior leadership, and led to mass layoffs of its security team.
Microsoft is often regarded as a leader in security, with Teams being one of the most robust UCaaS solutions in terms of data protection. These attacks call that into question. Regaining the trust of its user-base will be a difficult task for Microsoft in 2025.
There are more reasons to be extra concerned about cybersecurity in the coming years. As the PSTN gets shut off, the whole world of business communications will be in the cloud. This creates a greater need than ever for end-to-end encryption and compliance with security mandates like GDPR and IS 27001.
Another thing to worry about is AI and its incredible ability to generate fraud. Deepfakes and artificially generated content have improved, making fraud potentially more dangerous and harder to detect. Fraud detection will need to greatly improve to combat this threat, and as fire is used to fight fire, AI may be the tool of choice to combat AI.
APIs allow businesses to customize their apps and websites to integrate communication channels such as SMS messaging, voice, video, and even social media. They function almost like LEGO, allowing a user to build their own solutions, particularly for CPaaS.
As 2025 progresses, we’re likely to see APIs become much more common, removing the need for siloed communication channels like traditional contact centers. This would, in theory, allow for more flexibility while reducing costs.
API integration, however, is often easier said than done. Many IT teams won't have the time or resources to invest in customizing their own CPaaS solution, which would lead them to deploy contact centers the old-fashioned way.
While APIs will surely become more common this year than they were in 2024, it remains to be seen how many organizations will choose them versus an out-of-the-box solution.
More and more, organizations are looking for ways to do business while also being kinder to the environment. How this is done will obviously vary country by country and business by business, but it’s likely in many places we’ll see steps taken to make business communications just a little greener.
Optimizing video compression and cloud architecture can help an organization reduce its carbon footprint. Virtual meetings can also be done in lieu of long trips, reducing emissions. Most importantly, solution providers like Microsoft have made sustainability a goal, pushing to build environmentally conscious data centers all over the world.
How sustainability agendas develop will depend a lot on several factors outside of the business world, but it seems likely that the future will prove greener.
A few years ago, virtual and augmented reality was the big thing in the tech sector. Microsoft once unveiled its state-of-the-art AR technology and how it would change communications forever, and let’s not forget Meta’s groundbreaking Metaverse.
More recently, however, the buzz around this technology took a backseat to AI. It’s not hard to understand why, given how much more potential there is in AI on a conceptual level (and how much scarier it is to the average person). Despite the ascendancy of AI, VR and AR technology haven’t disappeared, and are poised to become more common in 2025.
Virtual office spaces from Meta and Microsoft are currently available and have only just begun to deliver on their potential. While the idea of conducting business in what is effectively VR chat might seem silly, it has the potential to spice up the meeting experience without costing too much.
More importantly, VR and AR have the potential to revolutionize training programs and team building exercises. By simulating hands-on experience, virtual training and meetings become more effective while accounting for costs and distance.
There’s a push in the communications world to redefine contact centers as customer experience (CX) platforms. In the modern business world, the customer experience is paramount, and 2025 will surely see this expand further.
CX is more than just a trite rebranding. It ensures all contact centers are omnichannel (with the option for API integration as well) and pushes for the addition of powerful AI tools that make customer service more efficient and, in some cases, more personalized. Many CX platforms also come with unified dashboards that help track agent performance and customer satisfaction in real time.
Customers have individual ways they prefer to engage with businesses. Some prefer phone calls over text messages, while others would rather be punched in the face than called on the phone. Catering to these individual preferences becomes easier and easier as CX technology develops.
We’ll end this list with the trend of offices becoming smarter in 2025. The sort of thing one would see in an episode of Star Trek comes closer to reality with each year, with AI-powered meeting rooms and more advanced interactive displays.
This is really the culmination of the other emerging trends. Expansions in AI, UCaaS, CX, cybersecurity, and hybrid work will come together to create the ultimate technologically enhanced workplace.
No one truly knows what the future holds, but as far as we at Continuant can tell, these are the emerging trends to pay attention to. Get ready for the PSTN to go the way of the dodo, and for AI to become even stronger.
