26 01732 759725 CLOUD TELEPHONY European cloud telephony company NFON is aiming to steal a march on its competitors by setting the pace in AI integration, reports James Goulding Not just talk voice-centric communication tools experiencing a 44% reduction in average revenue per user (ARPU) in the last 12 months. The global AI market, by contrast, is forecast to grow from $298.24 billion in 2024 to $1.84 trillion by 2030, giving NFON a real incentive to develop leadership in this area, while also driving growth in its core cloud telephony proposition. It aims to do the latter through a combination of international expansion (currently, 80% of NFON’s revenue is generated in Germany, 10% in Austria and a further 10% in the UK), the penetration of new market areas, such as healthcare and public sector, and by attracting bigger customers (it currently has an average of 17 seats per customer). CEO Patrick Heider said: “We have a dual transformation strategy. On the one hand, we want to really focus on efficiency and growing our traditional cloud PBX business, from 665,000 seats to 1 million users, and on the other hand we want to invest and drive further development in the AI sector.” In support of this, NFON, back in profit and cash-positive, has made multiple investments over the last year: it has restructured and transformed its cloud infrastructure, giving it the capacity to reliably scale the number of users of its cloud telephony solutions; acquired Bremen-based start-up botario in August, currently growing at 30% to 40%, after contributing 5 million euros to NFON’s coffers in 2024; recruited Jana Richter as Executive Vice President AI & Innovation to head up the company’s new, dedicated AI & Innovation organisation; and established an AI Partner Committee to share knowledge and insights with its 3,000-strong workflows for customers’ specific challenges. It is already developing such solutions for partners, a good example being an AI-powered voice and administration bot for automatically routing inbound calls (see opposite). The key point about these developments is that they are already live and available to NFON customers and not just items on a development wish list, which Alexander Wettjen, VP Group Sales at NFON, says gives the Munichheadquartered cloud PBX pioneer a clear competitive advantage. “I’m really excited because what some other companies are talking about is already real life for us. We are selling it, our partners are using it and our customers are using it,” he said. These developments are not NFON’s first use of AI. It has been using voice bots, chat bots, email bots and Copilot in its CC Hub omnichannel contact centre since the beginning of last year, and is continuing to add new AI features to that platform, with automated analysis of email attachments, smart routing and the integration of large language models into bot workflows on the cards for 2025. However, these advances do represent a significant expansion of its capabilities across its entire portfolio and a deeper strategic focus on AI as a growth engine, as described in the company’s new corporate strategy, NFON NEXT 2027. Strategy for growth This outlines how NFON plans to address key challenges in the global cloud communications market, which despite good growth (14% CAGR from 2020‑2030, according to Transparency Market Research) is suffering from commoditisation, with providers of How should you react after missing out on the biggest opportunity in decades, perhaps your lifetime? In the case of European cloud telephony provider NFON, which let slip the chance to become a leader in video collaboration during the pandemic, the answer is to make certain it is ready for and at the forefront of the next transformation in unified communications. Hence, its acquisition last August of voicebot and chatbot developer botario and the establishment of an AI & Innovation Organisation to integrate its new AI capabilities with its established voicecentric offering including the Cloudya business telephony and collaboration solution and NFON Contact Centre Hub (CC Hub). This investment is already bearing fruit with advances in three main areas: 1 the development of a multilingual AI chatbot, the NFON Intelligent Assistant, or Nia, that can understand and respond to queries using colloquial language, effectively providing 24/7 assistance to customers. Now available on the NFON website and partner portal, NFON also uses Nia internally to give users a quicker and easier way to find solutions to technical questions; 2 the ongoing integration of AI-powered capabilities within NFON’s cloud communication platform, starting with the time-saving transcription of voice messages (and delivery by email), which goes live this month, with additional efficiency enhancements on the way, including call transcription and summaries; and 3 Business process automation, using its AI and bot capabilities to create bespoke, automated
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