Avaya vs Genesys: Which contact center solution wins in 2026?

Avaya and Genesys are industry-leading contact center solutions. Organizations use them to manage customer interactions across channels in one place. While both platforms serve the same purpose, businesses often compare their key features, such as cloud vs on-premises deployment, AI capabilities, and enterprise scalability, to choose the most suitable option.

This Avaya vs Genesys comparison guide breaks down how the two platforms stack up against each other. You can then use the insights to determine the best contact center software for your company. 

What is Avaya?

Avaya helps businesses manage voice and digital customer interactions in a central platform. It also comes with AI-powered automation plus analytics you can use to track, measure, and improve customer experience. 

When Avaya was founded in 2000, its primary focus was on-premises business telephones, commonly known as private branch exchange systems. Today, the company offers a contact center solution, Avaya Infinity platform (formerly Avaya Experience Platform), that supports not just phone calls but all modern channels customers use to interact with businesses.

According to the company’s website, Avaya is primarily built to support communications in large, complex organizations. 

What is Genesys?

Genesys offers cloud contact center software for managing multichannel customer interactions through both self-service and rep assistance. It’s one of the leaders in the industry, as recognized by Gartner in a 2025 report. 

Founded in 1990, the company has long offered an on-premises solution, with support continuing through the end of 2028, after which it will be discontinued. The company is transitioning to its cloud-based contact center as a service (CCaaS) platform, Genesys Cloud CX, which is built for businesses of all sizes. 

Gartner also recognized Genesys Cloud CX as one of the leading solutions in the CCaaS market. 

Avaya vs Genesys: Which one is right for you?

	Avaya	Genesys
Best for	Large enterprises and public sector organizations	Businesses of all sizes
Industry fit	Healthcare, government, financial services, education, automotive, and more	Insurance, retail, banking, hospitality, pharmaceuticals, and more
Deployment options	On-premises, cloud, and hybrid (on-premises and cloud)	Cloud native
Scalability	On-premises and hybrid setups can be complex to scale; cloud is more flexible	Easily scalable
AI and Automation	Available	Available
Pricing	Plans range between $48 and $125 per user per month	Plans range between $75 and $240 per user per month
AI features	AI-powered routing, virtual agents, and AI agent assistance	Predictive routing, AI-driven customer journey orchestration, chatbots, and real-time AI agent support
Security	Enterprise grade	Enterprise grade
Integrations	Limited	Broad

Avaya and Genesys serve different types of organizations based on scale, infrastructure preferences, and customer experience goals.

Avaya is a go-to contact center solution for large, complex enterprises with legacy or customized systems. Genesys, on the other hand, appeals to businesses that prioritize a cloud-first platform. 

Target audience for Avaya

Organizations that use Avaya include

• Large enterprises and multinational organizations with complex communication environments
• Public sector, healthcare, and financial services organizations with strict security and compliance requirements
• Businesses that need on-premises or hybrid contact center deployments due to legacy systems or regulatory constraints

Avaya doesn’t require businesses to overhaul their IT infrastructure to use the Avaya Infinity platform. Companies that prefer to keep their contact center on-site for security, integration, or compliance reasons can deploy it on-premises without having to abandon their existing infrastructure and tools. Those looking for scalability and lower up-front costs can choose Avaya’s contact center as a service. And for businesses that want the best of both worlds, a hybrid option combines on-premises control with cloud flexibility and scalability.

Target audience for Genesys

Organizations that use Genesys include

• Small, mid-sized, and large businesses looking for a scalable, cloud-native solution
• Customer-centric organizations focused on omnichannel engagement and digital-first experiences
• Companies that want AI and automation to improve efficiency and personalization

These organizations choose Genesys because it’s designed for modern, cloud-native operations, which makes it readily scalable and cost-effective when managing multichannel customer interactions. 

Key features of Avaya

Avaya offers enterprise-grade contact center capabilities designed for complex operational needs: 

Multichannel support

Avaya Infinity unifies chat, SMS, voice, and email communication channels in one platform. It also supports private messaging in social media platforms, including Facebook, WhatsApp, and Instagram. 

No matter how a customer reaches out, agents can see the full conversation history, so customers don’t have to repeat themselves.

Flexible deployment options

Avaya Infinity is available as

• A contact center as a service platform: It eliminates the need to pay for expensive on-site servers because it runs on the cloud — you only pay for services you use. You can use it on public clouds, such as Azure, AWS, and Google Cloud Platform.
• An on-premises software tool: It provides full control over storage and data security.
• A hybrid solution: It gives businesses cloud-like features while continuing to use their own data centers. You can deploy Avaya Infinity in your data centers using edge technologies like Azure Local, Google Distributed Cloud, and AWS Outposts.

Automation and AI capabilities

Inside Avaya Infinity, organizations can automate and personalize customer and employee experiences using no- or low-code rules. 

For example, users can trigger contact center workflows using keywords or customer journey events instead of code. The software can also automatically handle post-call activities, such as generating a summary of the conversation and updating customer records in the CRM, so human agents don’t have to do it manually. 

In addition to automation, the Avaya contact center solution comes with artificial intelligence capabilities. For instance, you can integrate human agents with agentic AI to streamline customer interactions. 

Key features of Genesys

Here are some of the most prominent features of Genesys:

Cloud-native omnichannel contact center platform

Unlike Avaya, which offers multiple deployment options, Genesys Cloud CX is available only as a cloud-based contact center as a service. It provides a central platform to manage customer interactions across various channels, including email, live chat, SMS, and social media. 

Customer journey management

Genesys Cloud Journey Management helps you visualize every step a customer takes when interacting with your business across channels. That way, you get a comprehensive snapshot of the customer journey, giving you insights you can use to streamline customer interactions with your brand. 

Voice services

Genesys offers cloud-based telephony, which allows organizations to run business phone systems over the internet instead of traditional, physical phone lines. You can keep your existing voice service provider or choose the native option inside the platform. 

Cloud telephony allows businesses to receive calls from anywhere, even if your customer support agents are globally dispersed. You can be there for people who prefer phone-based support. 

Shared features of Avaya and Genesys

Both Avaya and Genesys come with the fundamental features you’d expect an enterprise-grade contact center solution to have.

Automatic call distribution

Both Avaya and Genesys can route incoming customer calls to the most appropriate human agent. Genesys Cloud Predictive Routing and Avaya Intelligent Routing allow you to use AI to identify the best agent for each interaction. 

With AI-driven routing, you can analyze customer demographics (e.g., history and location), situational context (e.g., time of day and customer intent), and employee attributes (e.g., location and specialty) to connect customers to the right agent. 

Besides using AI, you can also predefine simple routing rules in both Genesys and Avaya. 

AI-powered customer self-service

Avaya and Genesys have features that help businesses offer 24-7 customer support, such as

• Interactive voice response (IVR) system: It helps callers get information and complete simple requests using voice prompts or menu options. For example, IVR can share estimated wait times, play helpful messages, and route callers to the right live agent based on their input.
• Virtual agent: Both solutions offer a pre-built, ready-to-deploy virtual agent — Genesys Virtual Agent and Avaya Virtual Agent. The tools are basically AI chatbots that can answer customer questions at any time, even during off hours.

Customers can engage with the self-service solutions first. And if they don’t get the help they need, both Avaya and Genesys can hand off to a live customer service agent with all the necessary context included. 

Analytics and reporting

Avaya and Genesys allow you to track the performance of your contact center using real-time and historical reports. In both platforms, you can create custom dashboards and views to track metrics that matter the most to your business. You can then export the insights and share them across the organization. 

Unified communications and collaboration

Apart from providing a contact center platform, Avaya and Genesys come with collaboration and communication solutions that make it easy for teams to work together seamlessly from anywhere. 

In Genesys, for example, you can use a native video chat feature to host video conferences. Alternatively, you can use Zoom and Microsoft Teams pre-built integrations instead. Team members can also talk and share files or links in a chat room. 

Avaya’s unified communications and collaboration tools include

• Avaya Cloud Office: Allows employees to meet, call, and message from anywhere
• Avaya Aura Private Cloud: Provides a private cloud environment to run your communication and collaboration solutions
• Avaya IP Office and Avaya Aura: Unifies voice, video, and messaging both in house and remotely, in addition to limited call management features

Avaya and Genesys have the same standard features. But what exactly sets them apart? 

Unique features of Avaya and Genesys

While Avaya and Genesys share common features, there are select functionalities that make each tool unique. 

Avaya

Features present in Avaya but absent in Genesys include

• Backward compatibility: Avaya Infinity is designed to work with legacy or older Avaya solutions that businesses may already be using, such as Avaya Aura. That way, you don’t have to change your existing tools to use the modern Avaya platform.
• Three deployment options: You can set up Avaya Infinity as an on-premises, cloud, or hybrid solution.
• Available to large businesses only: In 2025, Avaya announced that its contact center platform would only be available to companies with at least 200 agent seats. Organizations below that threshold could either terminate or upgrade their subscription.

Genesys

Some unique features of Genesys include 

• Cloud-only platform: Genesys is ending support for its on-premises contact center solutions and transitioning to the Genesys Cloud CX, which operates only in the cloud.
• Extensive social media integration: Genesys supports WhatsApp, Facebook, X (formerly Twitter), and Instagram. Avaya removed X integration from its platform in 2025 but still supports the rest of the social channels.
• Genesys AppFoundry Marketplace: It provides a wide range of third-party tools you can use to enhance the Genesys Cloud CX platform.

Genesys vs Avaya: Side-by-side comparison

When choosing between Avaya and Genesys, it’s helpful to compare each tool’s key features. 

AI and automation

Avaya offers strong automation across call routing, IVR, and workflows, with options for rule-based and AI-assisted automations. 

Automation in Genesys Cloud CX is heavily AI driven, including predictive routing, customer self-service virtual agents, AI-powered knowledge-management tools, Genesys Cloud AI Studio, and AI assistance for customer service agents. 

Omnichannel support

Avaya allows organizations to manage customer interactions via voice, email, live chat, SMS, and social media. However, the company no longer supports integration with X. 

Genesys supports omnichannel experiences across voice, SMS, email, live chat, co-browsing, and social media (including X). 

Analytics

Avaya analytics primarily focuses on real-time and historical reports. Genesys offers those insights, too, but with additional capability. Its predictive engagement feature uses AI to analyze customers’ historical and real-time interactions to reveal insights you can use to predict their needs.

Integration capabilities

Since Avaya Infinity is built with backward compatibility, it’s designed to integrate with Avaya’s legacy or existing tools, including Avaya Aura and Avaya IP Office. However, it can also integrate with several popular third-party applications, including Salesforce, Microsoft Dynamics 365, and ServiceNow. 

Genesys has an expansive ecosystem of pre-built integrations. Plus, you can connect it to over 600 apps in the Genesys AppFoundry Marketplace. 

Deployment options

You can deploy Genesys Cloud CX only in the cloud. Meanwhile, you can set up Avaya as an on-premises, cloud, or hybrid solution. 

Pricing and plans

How much should you expect to pay to use Avaya or Genesys?

Avaya pricing 

If your contact center will have at least 200 users, you can choose a plan from three options. Contact Avaya for custom pricing.

Genesys pricing plans

Genesys Cloud CX has four pricing plans. For customized, usage-based costs for each package, connect with a Genesys sales rep. 

Do these tools seem expensive? They aren’t the only option in the market. You can consider an Avaya or Genesys alternative with competitive pricing and advanced functionality. 

How Jotform AI Agents enhance contact center operations

While Jotform isn’t a complete enterprise-grade contact center solution you can use as a full-scale Genesys or Avaya alternative, it can help you enhance customer service. 

With Jotform AI Agents, you can build AI-powered virtual assistants that provide customer support 24-7 — all without writing a single line of code. 

Jotform offers over 7,000 AI Agent templates, including those purposely designed for customer support. So even without a technical background, your team can easily train a custom virtual agent to handle customer support tasks like answering questions and booking appointments.

For complex questions that require your team’s involvement, Jotform AI Agents can seamlessly hand off the conversation to a human live chat. Other channels that Jotform supports include Messenger, phone, and WhatsApp. 

For businesses using Avaya or Genesys, Jotform AI Agents offer automated solutions for managing customer interactions, reducing ticket volume, and streamlining customized workflows for support teams. 

Try Jotform AI Agents for free today to see how they simplify and speed up contact center operations.