AI call center software comes in two kinds, and the first decision is which kind you are buying.
Contact center suites run the phones: routing, IVR, the agent desktop and workforce management. Every major suite now builds AI in: agents that answer callers, assistance for your people during the call, summaries and automated scoring. NICE CXone, Genesys Cloud, Five9, Talkdesk and Dialpad are the names most comparison lists start with.
The AI layer works on top of whichever suite you run. It listens to every conversation, analyzes and scores it, and tells you what to change, without replacing your telephony. Ender Turing, Observe.AI and CallMiner are built this way.
If you are replacing your phone system, compare the suites. If you are keeping it and want to know what happens on your calls, compare the AI layer. This list covers both.
The eight tools at a glance
| Tool | Kind | Starting price | Free plan or trial | G2 rating |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ender Turing | AI layer | Free plan; $39 per agent a month | Free plan, no expiry | 4.8/5 |
| Observe.AI | AI layer | Quote; $828 per agent a year on AWS Marketplace | Demo | 4.6/5 (268 reviews) |
| CallMiner | AI layer | Quote | Demo | 4.5/5 (230 reviews) |
| NICE CXone | Suite | $110 per agent a month | Demo | 4.3/5 (1,730 reviews) |
| Genesys Cloud CX | Suite | $75 per user a month, billed annually | Free trial on request | 4.4/5 (1,572 reviews) |
| Five9 | Suite | $119 per concurrent seat a month, 50-seat minimum | Demo | 4.1/5 (625 reviews) |
| Talkdesk | Suite | $85 per user a month | Free plan for small teams (Express) | 4.4/5 (2,600 reviews) |
| Dialpad | Suite | $80 per user a month, billed annually | 14-day free trial | 4.4/5 (712 reviews) |
G2 ratings and review counts as shown on each product's G2 page on September 24, 2026.
How we compared them
We read each vendor's own product and pricing pages and its G2 page in September 2026, and asked the same five questions of every tool:
- Is it a suite or a layer? Does it run the phones, or work on top of the ones you have?
- What does the AI do? AI agents that talk to customers, help for agents during the call, scoring and analysis after it.
- What does it cost, and how is it charged? Per agent, per user, per concurrent seat, or by quote.
- Can you try it first? A free plan, a free trial or a sales demo only.
- What do users criticize? The patterns across reviews on G2 and Capterra.
Prices change. Check the vendor's own pricing page before you buy.
The AI layer: tools that work on top of your phones
1. Ender Turing
Best for: contact centers that want every conversation analyzed and scored, not a sample, and answers to their questions in plain language.
Pricing: free plan for up to 5 agents (100 calls per agent a month, calls up to 10 minutes, no expiry); Team $39 and Business $79 per agent per month. Sales and customer-success teams: $59 and $89 per user per month. See pricing.
G2 rating: 4.8/5.
What the AI does on your calls:
- Analyzes every call, chat and meeting in seconds, in any language: transcript, topics, CSAT, silence and script adherence (speech analytics).
- Scores 100% of conversations on your own scorecard with AutoQA, and shows its accuracy against your reviewers for every point (quality management; how accuracy is measured).
- Answers questions about your conversations in plain language: "Why did calls about blocked cards rise last week?" (Chat with EnderGPT).
- Automates the work around the calls with Enders: escalations, summaries and coaching material (Enders).
- Coaches each agent with their own dashboard, playlists of calls to learn from, training plans and quizzes (agent management).
Works with the suites below: it connects read-only to NICE CXone, Genesys Cloud, Five9 and Talkdesk, and to Amazon Connect, Zendesk, GoHighLevel and others, or records browser calls with its extension (integrations).
Languages: any language. Production speech recognition today covers English, Spanish, Portuguese, French, German, Polish, Ukrainian, Arabic, Chinese, Japanese and more; a language we do not run yet is added on request or connected through your own speech-recognition engine.
Limits to know: it is not a dialer or a contact center suite, so it needs the telephony you already run or its browser extension; live suggestions during the call (agent assist) are still in early access.
We make Ender Turing. Every fact in this entry comes from our pricing page, our Help Center or G2. See how the platform works or start free.
2. Observe.AI
Best for: enterprise contact centers in regulated, high-volume industries; Observe.AI names banking, healthcare, insurance, travel and utilities.
Pricing: not published on its website. Its own AWS Marketplace listings sell Real-Time AI and Post-Interaction AI at $828 per agent a year on a 12-month contract.
Free trial: no; a demo only.
G2 rating: 4.6/5 from 268 reviews.
What the AI does:
- Voice and chat AI agents that authenticate callers, look up records, complete tasks and hand over to a person.
- Companion Agent: next-best actions, knowledge and compliance prompts during the call, and a summary after it.
- Auto QA scores every call and chat against your rubric, with the evidence for each score.
- Performance Agents build coaching plans from the QA results; Insights Agents answer questions about root causes in plain language.
It connects to your contact center platform, CRM and BI tools through more than 250 integrations.
What reviewers criticize (in the fewer, partly older reviews available): transcription, sentiment and detection accuracy, including false alarms; setup takes configuration and time; reporting and customization are limited.
3. CallMiner
Best for: large enterprise contact centers and outsourcers in banking, insurance, healthcare and collections.
Pricing: not published; a demo only.
G2 rating: 4.5/5 from 230 reviews (CallMiner Eureka).
What the AI does:
- Analyzes 100% of interactions and scores each one (CallMiner Analyze).
- Automates QA on every interaction, or runs a hybrid with human reviewers (CallMiner Coach).
- Alerts agents and supervisors with next-best actions during the call (CallMiner RealTime).
- Adds voice virtual agents and generative features such as summaries and plain-language search.
It connects through open APIs and pre-built connectors, and works with any transcription engine.
What reviewers criticize (many of its reviews are older): a steep learning curve, as the query language takes time to master; setup and training effort; gaps in the API and in some telephony and CRM connections.
Contact center suites with AI built in
4. NICE CXone
Best for: large contact centers that want telephony, routing, workforce management and analytics from one vendor.
Pricing: published, per agent per month, billed monthly in arrears: Omnichannel $110, Essential $135 (adds Quality Management), Core $169 (adds workforce management), Complete $209 (adds Interaction Analytics) and Ultimate $249 plus $0.25 per session (adds the Copilots, AI agents and automated summaries). NICE pricing.
Free trial: none on the pricing page; a demo and a quote.
G2 rating: 4.3/5 from 1,730 reviews.
What the AI does:
- AI agents for self-service by voice and digital channels, analyzed by NICE's own Enlighten AI.
- Copilot for Agents surfaces knowledge, context and next-best actions.
- Quality Management with Auto Score grades 100% of interactions and summarizes evaluations for coaching.
- Interaction Analytics finds sentiment, intents, soft skills and root causes across every conversation.
What reviewers criticize: reports that disagree with each other; lag, glitches and dropped calls; slow support and effortful setup.
5. Genesys Cloud CX
Best for: mid-size and enterprise contact centers buying a full platform with AI.
Pricing: published, per named user per month, billed annually: CX 1 $75, CX 2 $115 (adds quality assurance), CX 3 $155 and CX 4 $240. Several AI features are metered in AI Experience tokens; CX 4 includes 30 tokens per named agent. Genesys pricing.
Free trial: available on request through Genesys's free-trial page, qualified by sales and only in some regions.
G2 rating: 4.4/5 from 1,572 reviews.
What the AI does:
- Agentic virtual agents that run multi-step workflows within guardrails.
- Agent and Supervisor Copilots: next-best actions, summaries and knowledge.
- AI Scoring pre-fills quality evaluations; a person approves each AI-scored one.
- Speech and text analytics: transcription, sentiment, empathy and topics.
What reviewers criticize: a learning curve and complex setup; reports and dashboards that are hard to customize; the price, and occasional dropped calls and audio problems.
6. Five9
Best for: mid-size and enterprise contact centers with 50 seats or more.
Pricing: Digital $119 and Core $159 per concurrent seat per month; Plus, Pro and Enterprise by quote. A 50-seat minimum applies, and usage charges may be added. Five9 pricing.
Free trial: no; a demo only.
G2 rating: 4.1/5 from 625 reviews (Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center Platform).
What the AI does:
- Voice AI agents that plan and complete tasks across your business systems.
- AI Agent Assist: guidance cards and checklists, live transcription and call summaries.
- AI Insights groups calls into categories and measures what you define in a prompt.
- Workforce engagement adds Interaction Analytics over 100% of interactions to automate quality work.
What reviewers criticize: call quality and reliability, including outages and dropped calls; complex configuration and a dated interface; slow support and a high per-user cost for small teams.
7. Talkdesk
Best for: mid-market and enterprise contact centers, with industry-specific editions.
Pricing: published, per user per month: Digital Essentials $85, Voice Essentials $105, Elite $165 and Industry Experience Clouds $225; the AI products are quoted. Talkdesk pricing.
Free plan: Talkdesk Express, for businesses in the US and Canada with fewer than 50 employees: 25 licenses and $100 in credit, with no contract.
G2 rating: 4.4/5 from 2,600 reviews.
What the AI does:
- Autopilot AI agents resolve requests end to end by voice and digital channels.
- Copilot gives agents next-best actions, answers, live transcription and automatic summaries.
- Quality Management scores 100% of interactions with AI; Interaction Analytics finds topics, intent and sentiment.
- Navigator routes each contact to an automated or a human path.
Talkdesk also sells its AI for contact centers that run other platforms.
What reviewers criticize: call quality and stability; reporting that ends up rebuilt in spreadsheets, and integrations that need technical setup; price and support once AI options are added.
8. Dialpad
Best for: small and mid-sized support teams that want the phone system and the AI from one vendor.
Pricing: Dialpad Support (formerly Dialpad Ai Contact Center), per user per month billed annually: Essentials $80, Advanced $115 and Premium $150; month to month costs more. AI agents are sold on credits. Dialpad pricing.
Free trial: 14 days on the Essentials plan.
G2 rating: 4.4/5 from 712 reviews (Dialpad Support).
What the AI does:
- AI agents resolve routine calls, chats and texts and hand over with context.
- AI Live Coach guides agents during the conversation.
- AI Scorecards grade every call against your QA criteria; AI CSAT predicts satisfaction on every call.
- AI Recaps summarize each call.
What reviewers criticize: advanced features take effort to set up; support is thin on complex routing and integration questions; gaps in QA workflows and queue reporting.
Often compared, but built for other teams
Four tools come up in call center comparisons but are built for other jobs:
- Gong is built for B2B sales teams; it describes itself as an AI operating system for revenue teams. See Gong alternatives.
- CallRail and Invoca track which marketing campaigns make the phone ring: CallRail for small businesses and agencies, Invoca for large consumer brands. See CallRail alternatives.
- Medallia runs company-wide customer-experience programs across surveys, reviews, digital channels and the contact center. See Medallia alternatives.
Which one fits
- You keep your phone system and want every conversation analyzed, scored and turned into coaching: the AI layer. Ender Turing if you want to start free with published prices (start free); Observe.AI or CallMiner for enterprise programs bought through sales.
- You are replacing your phone system: a suite. NICE CXone and Genesys Cloud publish per-seat prices for the whole platform; Five9 starts at 50 seats; Talkdesk and Dialpad have entry points for smaller teams.
- Both: the layer works on top of the suite. Ender Turing connects read-only to NICE CXone, Genesys Cloud, Five9 and Talkdesk. See how the platform works.
