NiCE TV | NiCE World London 2026 Interview with Scott Russell, CEO, NiCE

Thank you, Chris. Great to be here.

It is a busy month, but it's exciting, isn't it? Isn't it fun when you're in Orlando and you have thousands of customers and the buzz of the event and then we get here in London and we get to do it all over again?

I think there's a couple of things. First of all, the international markets have the move from CCAs, the on-prem to the cloud definitely was behind markets like the US which had progressed further. So you've got a built-up demand of a lot of large enterprises and small businesses that are making that move. The difference though is that they're making the change with AI at the center rather than a two-step move. And what's exciting about international which is fueling our growth is our AI leadership together with our traditional CX strength is now the predominant basis of those buying decisions. They're doing it all in one go and they're doing it faster than potentially even some of the more mature markets. So internationally as I've spoken about many times it is a huge growth driver. Europe flying here in the UK.

Yeah, I should have mentioned because when I talk AI,

I'm actually meaning Cogni and so the first point is we are the first truly native CX platform with AI embedded throughout Cogni. The conversational and energetic capabilities that Cogni had as a standalone platform is now natively embedded. Not bolted on, not added on, not integrated to, embedded. So all of the AI capabilities that we have at NICE is AI capabilities delivered by Cogni. That is so important. Why? Because when customers are thinking about their CX environment, they don't want a fragmented solution that bolted on. They want something that can be intertwined, interoperable between the way their humans interact with their customers and the AI agent works. They want their workforce to be a combined workforce. They want the consumer experience to have not only great first contact but fulfillment that requires and the only way we were able to achieve that was through cognitive. Now to answer your question, timing. This is time to market. This is where our differentiation becomes critical. So, I've got to give credit to Phil Helterig and Jeff Comtock and the team because we set a really aggressive timeline. Yes, we expected November, but we really wanted it by midyear because customers are demanding it, Chris. Customers are demanding a unified platform that delivers the resilience and scale that they're used to from NICE for decades, but they want it in an AI world. Cogni delivers that embedded in CX1. So we were really delivering this schedule to our customers expectations as much as our own go to market needs. It's exciting because it means every customer now gets the benefit from what we've done.

I think there's a few things. Pilots are interesting. Production scale matters. So you're not having to discover the what might be. You can go into what will be. And then last but not least is you're leveraging a company that has been living in the CX world for 40 years. 25 billion interactions. We understand the intents, the needs, the behaviors, the analytics, and we're combining that in an AI first world in the future. So, you're coming in with an expertise of not only great technology, but great understanding of your business needs. It's the perfect combination. That's why we've got so many people here, Chris. Thousands of people coming because they genuinely want to go from where they are to where they want to be, but they want to make sure it's proven. No more discovery. I want proven results, proven outcomes. Only NICE can deliver.

Trip Advisor, great story.

The automation. Everybody thinks automation customers are happier.

What I love about Trip Advisor is they set really aggressive goals. They were live in a couple of months. So they needed a proven platform. They were using AI to do tasks and they got a better seat. But the other thing that was interesting is they really trusted the customer. They understood their customers, understood how quickly to deliver to them. And so they were no longer thinking could this work. Now they're like how do we rapidly deploy now that they've got the platform in place. It's a great example, but it's one of very many.

Thank you, Chris. And thank you for all that you do. The program, the leadership is fantastic. It's been a privilege working with you and looking forward to a great event ahead.