Three new categories recognize agentic AI, AI-powered customer service and self-service, and AI for customer data and customer journey orchestration, with submissions closing November 20, 2026.
-- CMSWire has opened submissions for its 2027 customer experience and customer service awards. The vendor early-entry period ends September 30, 2026. Entries will be accepted through November 20, 2026, and winners will be announced in spring 2027.
Now in its sixth year, the CMSWire IMPACT Awards program recognizes measurable achievement across AI in customer experience, AI in customer services and contact centers, and innovations and impact in the CCaaS space, conversational AI innovation, chatbots, agentic customer service, customer journey platforms and optimization, and digital experience observability, analytics and intelligence.
Entries are scored on the outcomes an initiative delivered and the evidence provided to support them. Applications are reviewed by a panel of more than 140 vetted practitioners and experts, and judges are not assigned applications from participants in their own industry. Applicants may apply to as many categories as they wish and can win or rank in more than one.
Practitioner awards recognize CX and digital experience leaders who have elevated the customer experience through digital technologies and cross-functional partnership over the past year. Vendor awards recognize work delivered for a customer or client across contact center platforms and customer support operations, chatbots and conversational AI, journey analytics and observability, and customer data, identity and personalization.
Three new AI in CX award categories have been added for 2027, reflecting how customer experience teams and technology vendors are activating enterprise-grade artificial intelligence for real-world impact: one practitioner category for CX or customer service teams that have built an agentic strategy or deployed agentic AI tools, and two vendor categories covering AI applied to customer data, identity and personalization or orchestration, and to AI that is having measurable impact on customer self-service.
The practitioner awards for 2027 are Customer Experience Leader of the Year, Customer Journey Innovation, and Best Use of Agentic AI in Customer Experience, which is new this year.
The vendor awards are Best Customer Experience Transformation; Best Use of AI in Customer Experience; Excellence in CCaaS & Customer Service; Excellence in Chatbots & Conversational AI; Excellence in DX Analytics, Observability & Intelligence; Excellence in Digital Experience & Journey Optimization; and two categories new for 2027, Best Use of AI for Customer Data, Identity, or Personalization and Best AI-Powered Self-Service or Conversational Experience.
Recent CMSWire IMPACT Awards honorees include Talkdesk, Optimizely, RingCentral, Quadient, Concentrix and Firstsource. Full category descriptions, judging criteria, past winners and current entry fees are available at the CMSWire IMPACT Awards program site.
"The IMPACT Awards recognize the customer experience teams that can show real results from their work," said Dom Nicastro, editor-in-chief of CMSWire.
"We added the new AI categories this year because that's where a lot of the most interesting work is happening right now — across contact centers, customer data and digital journeys. We want to recognize the teams doing it well."
Applications are submitted via the CMSWire IMPACT Awards program site and typically take 1.5 to 4 hours to complete.
Vendor applicants are not required to name the customer behind a submission, and only the category-specific portion of an application is shared with judges.
CMSWire's guide, How to Win a 2027 CMSWire IMPACT Award: Inside the Application Playbook, provides additional tips for entrants.
Winners are recognized in a feature article on CMSWire, in a listing on the IMPACT Awards site and with digital badges. Gold winners also receive a trophy, and Leaders of the Year are interviewed by the CMSWire editor-in-chief.
About CMSWire
CMSWire is a customer experience news publication and a community of more than 5 million professionals. The CMSWire editorial and research teams serve today's business leaders across customer experience, customer service, contact centers, agentic and personalized digital experiences, and the AI technologies that impact these operations.
CMSWire's mission is to advance the careers of today's customer experience leaders through high-impact news, knowledge, networking and recognition.
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