Salesforce Bets a Reported $2.7 Billion on Cresta’s Voice Agents as NiCE Cuts 5% of Staff to Chase Contact-Center AI

Salesforce agreed to buy voice-agent startup Cresta in a deal reported at $2.7 billion, while NiCE cut about 5% of its workforce to fund customer-experience AI. Here is what the shift means for how businesses answer the phone.

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ServiceNow Releases an Open Voice AI Model That Listens, Reasons and Calls Tools in One Step, Hitting 65.5% on Real Support Tasks

ServiceNow’s open, MIT-licensed Apriel Voice 27B Preview turns spoken requests directly into answers and tool calls, scoring 65.51% task success on a voice support benchmark at 1.91 seconds of latency. Here is what it does, where it falls short and why it matters for businesses building AI phone and support agents.

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