NiCE is acquiring Cognigy, the enterprise conversational and agentic AI leader.
Cognigy launched AI agents back in January 2025 and kept releasing updates since. It’s high-ranking in Gartner Magic Quadrant and Forrester Wave for conversational AI.
NiCE snaps up Cognigy’s tech and expert team. This plays into NiCE’s push to lead AI-first customer service with CXone Mpower Orchestrator. 
Scott Russell, CEO of NiCE, called it a “landmark moment” that fast-tracks AI innovation and expands NiCE’s global reach.
Scott Russell, CEO of NiCE, stated:
This is a landmark moment for NiCE, a strategic move that fast-tracks our AI innovation agenda and sets a new standard for customer experience in the AI era.
By bringing a market leader in enterprise-grade conversational and agentic AI into the fold, we are accelerating global AI adoption, expanding into new global markets, and creating game-changing value for our customers, partners, and shareholders.
Together, we are significantly advancing the future of AI-first customer experience.
Cognigy revenue jumped from $17.5M in 2025 to $37M last year. It raised $100M and counts Adidas, Nestle, Toyota among customers.
Philipp Heltewig, Cognigy co-founder and CEO, sees a “massive opportunity” through the deal, highlighting NiCE’s global reach and innovation focus.
Philipp Heltewig, Co-Founder and CEO of Cognigy, said:
NiCE is an exceptional organization whose global reach, deep expertise, and relentless focus on innovation will accelerate our growth and enhance the value we bring to our customers and partners.
Together, we are uniquely positioned to shape the future of customer experience, uniting the best of trusted AI and human interactions.
Cognigy’s recent partnerships with Avaya and Genesys gave on-prem contact centers cloud-based AI overlays. NiCE’s acquisition locks it into those accounts, positioning it strongly as those customers migrate to cloud contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS).
Cognigy rates 4.8 on Gartner Peer Insights and 4.6 on G2, giving NiCE a trusted brand boost if it keeps the culture alive.
This deal may stir waves beyond CCaaS and agentic AI merging. NiCE also recently launched CXone Mpower Agents, and the acquisition could speed up AI-powered customer workflows.
Industry experts weigh in:
Maribel Lopez, Founder & Principal Analyst at Lopez Research:
“[The acquisition is] not surprising. Conversational AI is the one area in which everyone sees business value in AI. It’s a great tuck-in acquisition.
Unlike its competitors, NICE has an enviable cash position that will allow it to bolster its AI offerings while taking out competition.”
Zeus Kerravala, Principal Analyst at ZK Research:
“This is a significant move and an example of the rich getting richer. The leading AI-CC company scoops up the leader in conversational AI, A case where 1+1 could equal 10.
Also, many of NICE’s competitors use Cognigy, and they’ll have to scramble now to find an alternative. This could cause a wave of M&A activity in this market.”
Tim Banting, Head of Research & Business Intelligence at Techtelligence:
“This acquisition signals that the CX market is shifting toward fully integrated, AI-native platforms. As CX stacks become more difficult to manage, many organizations will move away from best-of-breed solutions in favour of comprehensive platforms that are easier to deploy, manage, and scale. By bringing Cognigy in-house, NiCE reduces its reliance on external partners and gains full control over the orchestration layer, a key move as automation becomes central to the customer journey.
For customers, this means tighter integration, faster rollout of AI, and fewer headaches across procurement, integration, and implementation. For partners and systems integrators, it’s an indicator that they need to revisit their current business models. While there’s still value in customisation, revenue streams tied to integrating multiple vendors will start to shrink. NiCE’s move also highlights a growing divide in the market between platforms that own their AI and orchestration layers and those that still depend on third-party tools.
Also, this acquisition aligns with NiCE’s broader strategy of entering adjacent markets to fuel growth. We’ve already seen this with their unified communications effort through 1CX, which seeks to unify contact center and employee collaboration on a single platform.”
Finbarr Begley, Senior Analyst at Cavell:
“With this acquisition, NiCE secures one of the most advanced autonomous AI agent providers in the market. Cognigy brings the structured intelligence needed to automate complex CX workflows at scale. This isn’t about generative hype; it’s a foundational move to control a service others relied on as neutral ground. It’s a clever, competitive play that reshapes the CX AI landscape.”
Oru Mohiuddin, Senior Research Manager at IDC:
“This feels like a match made in heaven. NiCE has pioneered AI in CX, and Cognigy has made impressive strides in agentic AI. Together, they can be expected to set new standards. And, with Cognigy being in Germany, it provides NiCE with a stronger European footing.”
More industry reactions expected as details emerge.
