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Five9 Executive Interview

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Five9’s Matt McGinnis on the AI Transformation Reshaping Customer Experience

Artificial intelligence is reshaping customer experience faster than anyone expected, and few leaders have had a closer view of that transformation than Matt McGinnis, Five9’s VP of Product, Industry, and Solution Marketing. Born in the cloud era and now accelerating into the agentic AI era, Five9 is redefining what modern CX looks like, blending human empathy with intelligent automation, orchestrating interactions across channels, and pushing the industry beyond its traditional boundaries. In this conversation, McGinnis shares how AI is changing the game, why enterprises are moving faster than ever, and what the next wave of innovation will mean for customers, agents, and the future of CX.

Sheri Greenhaus: When you look at Five9’s strategy and the evolution of your solutions, what’s driving your direction right now? Where are you seeing the strongest demand from customers and prospects?

Matt McGinnis: If you think about the major technology eras, the internet generation was transformative, and the cloud generation fundamentally changed how software could be built and delivered. Cloud let enterprises offload a lot of operational burden while gaining best‑in‑class capabilities. That’s when contact centers began shifting to CCaaS, and Five9 was born directly into that world. Our founders built Five9 with pure cloud DNA, and over time we became a recognized leader in CCaaS.

Now we’re entering the next major generation: AI transformation.

Historically, the focus was on platform strength — building great applications that empowered human agents, supported supervisors with analytics, and helped leaders elevate customer experience. AI changes the equation. It lets us analyze oceans of data to give managers and executives deeper insight. It augments human agents with tools like guidance cards, transcription, closed captioning, and real‑time assistance. And of course, the biggest shift is in self‑service, where AI can deliver fluid, human‑like automated experiences.

At CCW, we launched our Voice AI Agents, powered by our agentic platform. These agents can access a customer’s information, understand context, and respond in a natural, human‑like way. They expand scale, hours, availability, and create stronger connection points between consumers and brands. AI transformation is absolutely the next wave, and yes, I believe it will stick.

Sheri Greenhaus: You talked about Voice AI Agents displayed at CCW. Do you have customers using them now?

Matt McGinnis: We do. Two years ago, we introduced Five9 Genius AI, and then began talking about agentic capabilities, not just informational responses, but action‑oriented AI embedded across contact center applications.

Last year, we launched a co‑innovation program with existing customers. We brought them in early to help shape how our agentic engine would work inside the Five9 platform and how it would apply to self‑service. Through prompt building and context engineering, we created agentic Voice AI Agents that can operate across a wide range of use cases.

Some use cases seem simple but are actually complex, like password reset, especially when voice quality is poor or multi‑factor authentication is required. Others involve combining public LLMs with private knowledge to deliver highly personalized experiences.

These agents are now live and in production, and it’s one of the fastest‑growing parts of our business. Customers see real value in scale, quality, and speed. And the multilingual capability is huge: an agentic Voice AI Agent can switch languages instantly, know your history, and take action to resolve your issue quickly. It feels like a Nirvana state, and that’s exactly where we’re heading.

Sheri Greenhaus: So, these have moved from pilot to full scale?

Matt McGinnis: Yes.

Sheri Greenhaus: It sounds like a lot of this depends on having strong customer data. How much does success rely on the quality of the database?

Matt McGinnis: Data sources are critical. When you’re trying to hyper‑personalize with agentic AI, you have to understand the fragmented data landscape. There’s a common assumption that you need to “clean up all your data,” but often you don’t. Many organizations already have best‑in‑class systems that serve as strong data sources.

The real question becomes: How does the platform integrate with those data sources? What needs to be onboarded? What stays external? How does data flow in and out?

Five9 is uniquely strong here. We’re an open platform. We build our own integrations with Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and many others. We also support ISVs who integrate their applications with Five9, companies like Pindrop for authentication and fraud detection. We have hundreds of partners.

We also embed technology directly into our platform to add value. And then there’s onboard data — knowledge bases, documentation, policies, procedures — which combine with public LLMs. You end up with three or four categories of data informing the system so it can hyper‑personalize effectively.

It’s a deep topic, and organizations need a plan and trusted experts. But when done right, the results are powerful.

Sheri Greenhaus: Thinking about how your customers are using these capabilities, has anything surprised you? Something where you thought, “I didn’t even know we could do that”?

Matt McGinnis: Our customers surprise us every day with their creativity. With more than 3,000 customers worldwide, we see an incredible range of use cases from telco and mobile carriers, self‑storage (we even have demos on the website), financial services, banking, insurance, credit card, mortgage. They’re constantly finding new ways to engage customers and strengthen brand affinity. So yes, we’re surprised pretty much daily.

Sheri Greenhaus: You’ve been in the CRM and CX space for a long time. Over the last few years, what has surprised you most?

Matt McGinnis: The pace of AI adoption and innovation.  It’s moving faster than I expected. CX typically has a long adoption curve; people like to experiment before committing to transformational change. But with AI, we’re seeing both top‑down and bottom‑up momentum. Leaders want scale and cost efficiency, and frontline teams are actively using the tools. Adoption is happening at a very fast clip.

For vendors like us, it means we have to stay sharp. Enterprises need resiliency, availability, polish, not just features, but the full surround of a complete solution.

What’s interesting is that large enterprises are moving quickly. You’d expect smaller or mid‑market companies to adopt faster, but in this AI wave, big organizations are pushing generative AI into the frontline with real urgency. CX buying cycles that used to take eight to ten years are now dramatically shorter.

Another surprise is the evolving role of the human agent. There was a belief that AI would simply replace them. But what we’re seeing is a symphony, a seamless AI‑plus‑human experience. AI will excel in self‑service, but humans remain essential for complex, emotional, or nuanced interactions. Their role is becoming more important, even as the form changes.

And with 24/7, omnichannel access, the demand for interactions is exploding. People can start on digital, move to voice, and expect everything to be fluid. Vendors must plan for that scale — how we turn up services, how we support customers, how we prepare for exponential interaction volume. Faster adoption, constant innovation, and anticipating what’s next.  That’s the new reality.

Sheri Greenhaus: It’s interesting, as vendors often get caught up in what the technology should do. But consumers still have terrible experiences, especially with large companies. Smaller companies seem to be capitalizing on that. Even simple things aren’t simple. Why do you think this happens?

Matt McGinnis: Customer experience really matters. When consumers choose a brand, they’re thinking beyond the product. They want a company that supports them, personalizes the experience, keeps them informed, and makes them feel valued. That’s where loyalty comes from.

CX fragmentation is part of the issue. Around 40–50% of organizations are still on legacy, on‑premise contact center technology. The other 50–60% have moved to modern platforms with real‑time insights, sentiment analysis, and the ability to act quickly. CCaaS has made CX a strategic priority again, even at the C‑suite level.

AI is accelerating that shift. It makes things easier, more accessible, more available. It supports customers throughout the journey. Technology is becoming an enabler for executives who genuinely want to take better care of their customers.

Sheri Greenhaus: Early on, many leaders saw AI as a way to cut costs or reduce staff. And some felt pressure to “do something with AI” without a clear plan. But now I’m seeing CEOs, CFOs, and contact center leaders focus on specific problems and test targeted solutions. Are you seeing that too?

Matt McGinnis: Absolutely. There’s a real passion among CX leaders to get better information so they can make better decisions. A contact center generates an ocean of data every day. Historically, we could only sample a tiny percentage, maybe 2–3%, and it took weeks or months to identify patterns and optimize.

Now, technology lets us analyze 100% of interactions. Generative AI can scan that ocean of data, zoom into a specific “island,” and pinpoint the exact issue, even down to the “coconut on the tree,” so to speak. It works at both macro and micro levels. A data analyst can isolate fraud patterns, product return issues, or anything else and understand what’s happening, why it’s happening, and what to do about it, then act quickly.

These insights become dashboards: What are the biggest issues in the contact center today? Imagine querying your contact center through a ChatGPT‑like interface and instantly getting the top ten problems. Then the team can tackle them immediately with new policies, procedures, training, or product changes.

CX can now inform the entire business. It’s an exciting time, and we’re seeing customers embrace this capability in a big way.

Sheri Greenhaus: When your team goes into a customer environment, do they take a consultative approach? Do they sit with the customer, look at where issues exist, and identify where AI or automation will help most? Many customers know their pain points, but are your teams more consultative than the traditional sales model we saw 20 years ago?

Matt McGinnis: Absolutely. Five9 is known for being a trusted expert, and we take a highly consultative approach, not just within our direct teams, but across our large partner ecosystem as well.

We bring deep expertise, knowledge, and experience to every engagement. We start with a dialogue: What are your priorities? Then we dig in further.  Are there issues or opportunities the customer may not have recognized yet? From there, we bring in our field teams, including solution consultants who know both the technology and the business outcomes. They’ve seen patterns across industries and can bring the right experts to develop and deliver a plan.

This is one of Five9’s strengths. We don’t drop software into someone’s lap. We collaborate, design the best approach, and implement it together. Our professional services teams include business consulting groups with specialized expertise, and we bring all of that to bear to ensure we deliver outcomes. It’s a big reason we have some of the highest customer satisfaction scores in the CX market. It is why we’re a leader in the space.

We’ve been a leader for a long time, and the financial community has written extensively about our potential. We’re still a pure play, one of the most focused vendors in customer experience. We believe in it, we breathe it, and we’re passionate about it. That’s what makes the “trusted expert” label real. It’s not just something we say, it’s how we operate.

Sheri Greenhaus: Were you personally at CCW?

Matt McGinnis: I was. I never miss CCW in Vegas, especially when it’s indoors and air‑conditioned in June. It’s a great show.

Sheri Greenhaus: I was walking the hall thinking, who are all these companies? Everyone was saying, “We do AI.” What are your thoughts on all these new entrants?

Matt McGinnis: There’s a huge wave of market entry. Anytime an industry goes through a major transformation, you see new philosophies, new ideas, new products, and a lot of venture funding. As a CCaaS transformation leader, we can’t rest on our laurels. We’ve had to shift into entrepreneurial startup mode. That’s exactly what’s happened with our leadership changes and the energy across our teams. In many ways, we’ve become a public startup.

AI transformation is too important to approach passively. We’ve had to disrupt ourselves and build the next‑generation platform, our agentic engine, to power new AI‑driven applications. More is coming from Five9, but the key is that we’re evolving the platform, not just adding point solutions.

We’re watching the startups closely. Many are focused on self‑service AI. But what happens when their AI agent can’t handle an interaction? They hand it off - often to a Five9 human agent who is also AI‑empowered. In many ways, we’re the gateway. And the real advantage comes from how everything works together.

Imagine a future interaction: a customer starts with an AI agent, but a human approval is needed — underwriting, mortgage, financing, anything. Instead of transferring across systems, the AI agent stays on the line. The human joins a conference‑style interaction. The AI agent communicates with both parties, outlines steps, and provides information to the consumer and the human agent.

Think of it as an AI concierge.

While the customer is on hold, the AI could personalize the experience, even down to preferred music, and proactively address account issues. This synergy between AI and human agents is where platform players shine. Startups will eventually need to solve all these pieces, and that’s where they’ll feel pressure.

We’re approaching this transformation with humility, intelligence, and aggression. We embrace the change and focus on making the entire experience seamless, not just adding AI, but orchestrating it.

Orchestration is the piece the industry isn’t talking about enough. When someone calls or messages in, we need to know enough about them to route intelligently. Not all AI agents are the same — some will have specialties. And on the human side, maybe the customer is upset or stressed. We may need someone with more empathy.

So orchestration becomes:

• real‑time sentiment
• conditional state
• CRM and demographic data
• resource availability
• matching the right AI agent
• matching the right human agent
• blending them seamlessly

This is powerful. Our customers are already benefiting from it, and they’re talking about it publicly. We even had customers on the CCW main stage discussing these capabilities.

Sheri Greenhaus: Of everything Five9 is investing in what excites you most, or is there something else in the background that feels even more groundbreaking?

Matt McGinnis: The agentic era is incredibly exciting. We’re reimagining our entire portfolio. But there’s definitely more coming. It’s the classic “but wait, there’s more” moment. In three to six months, we’ll likely be unveiling the next chapter. This is not the end; it’s the beginning.

Data will play a bigger role. CRM is starting to disaggregate, competitive fronts are shifting, and the synergies between AI and humans will evolve further. Our teams, and customers who’ve seen previews, are very excited. This is just the start.

Sheri Greenhaus: Are there Five9 capabilities customers sometimes overlook but really shouldn’t?

Matt McGinnis: As a product person, I see the world through that lens. One thing customers sometimes overlook is how much value human agents add. For years, contact centers focused on squeezing out every bit of efficiency. Empathy wasn’t part of the equation.

But humans bring empathy. Empathy shapes the entire customer journey. It influences how AI interacts, how customers feel when the interaction ends, and whether they’ll do business again. It affects lifetime value. When you design products with empathy as a core philosophy, you create experiences that genuinely matter. That’s where the winners in this space will emerge.

Sheri Greenhaus: Would it be fair to say that Five9’s vision is to make things easy for customers and for agents so customers love the brands they interact with? What is the overall vision?

Matt McGinnis: Our vision isn’t just to use technology to create great customer experiences. AI is raising the bar, but we’re thinking beyond that. Where does CX go next? How does it evolve?

There’s a growing belief across vendors, analysts, and industry experts that CX is about to break out of its traditional definition — “I bought a product and now I need service.” That’s too narrow. CX will expand into the pre‑customer phase as well. We have a viewpoint on this, and with our entrepreneurial mindset, it opens new market opportunities and expands our addressable market.

I remember when I worked in telecommunications.  People thought it was boring. Then VoIP arrived, then cloud, then CCaaS. Suddenly it became one of the most dynamic spaces. Now AI is driving another breakthrough moment. Customer experience will be one of the biggest beneficiaries of this change. Innovation and passion for raising the bar, that’s what drives us.

Sheri Greenhaus: Is that what gets you out of bed in the morning? What makes you excited to do the work?

Matt McGinnis: Absolutely. There’s so much discovery happening. We’re at an inflection point, the Pareto boundary, where expectations are changing. Five years from now, we’ll look back and say, “That was an amazing time in our space.” And then we’ll be chasing the next big thing. Right now, we’re living it.

It’s the curiosity, the exploration, the question of “What else can we do?” How do we drive business outcomes that put smiles on people’s faces? That’s what this business is all about.

Sheri Greenhaus: What would you like to see as the next big thing?

Matt McGinnis: We’re in the generative AI era, but I think we’re heading toward artificial general intelligence and eventually artificial superintelligence. Conversational AI was the first wave, generative AI the second, and general intelligence will be the third.

Imagine calling a brand and speaking a specialty language. The system knows your history, preferences, sentiment, and can switch languages instantly. It doesn’t just solve the problem — it thinks more broadly about what could make the experience special.

Generative AI’s secret is summarization. General intelligence adds logic, context, and reasoning. That’s the next wave.

Data will become even more important — not as a burden, but as a necessary fuel for real‑time interactions. And I believe CX and Martech will begin to converge. That will be a major shift.

Sheri Greenhaus: We’re almost out of time. Is there anything I haven’t asked that you think is important for our audience?

Matt McGinnis: Two things.

First, we have a major AI Day on August 13. We’re bringing together top experts across the full AI stack. It’s going to be a huge event, possibly record‑setting, with deep content and big announcements. People can register on the Five9 website and attend virtually. It will also unveil elements of our leadership’s new vision and strategy.

Second, the “easy button” for getting started with AI transformation. There’s fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Change can feel intimidating. But this transformation can be incremental. These technologies will bring us to a better place. Start with the easy buttons, see the impact, and expand from there. It doesn’t have to be a hard shift. It can be a smooth transition that unlocks tremendous value.