Cloud-based contact center software helps businesses manage customer interactions with tools for inbound and outbound calls, including call routing, predictive dialing, IVR self-service, and analytics. The platform is accessed via a web-based suite delivered as a subscription, scalable and globally deployable with strong security. It differentiates itself with a broad feature set in the cloud, enterprise-grade security, and training via Five9 University. The goal is to help organizations improve customer service operations and efficiency by handling all interactions across channels.
Company Size
1,001-5,000
Company Stage
IPO
Headquarters
San Ramon, California
Founded
2001
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401(k) Retirement Plan
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Mental Health Support
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SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) pushes deeper into banking as competition from NICE and Five9 heats up. SoundHound AI (NASDAQ: SOUN) is building momentum in banking and financial services as enterprises seek to automate customer interactions without sacrificing service quality. In the second quarter of 2026, the company renewed or expanded contracts with two of the top seven global banking institutions and one of the largest global insurers. Management also cited growing demand from regional banks and credit unions looking to scale customer service operations and extend their operating hours beyond traditional limits. A top-tier regional credit union recently deployed SoundHound's automated AI agents while maintaining existing service standards and containment rates. Financial services represent a particularly meaningful opportunity because the sector demands stronger controls than most consumer-facing markets, requiring security, traceability and consistent oversight. SoundHound says its platform combines built-in guardrails with rigorous agent evaluation, positioning it as a viable option for mission-critical banking workflows where reliability is non-negotiable. The company's acquisition of LivePerson further reinforces this strategy, integrating enterprise digital messaging infrastructure to offer a unified platform spanning voice, web, mobile, SMS and social channels. The combined entity gains access to a customer base that includes 25 Fortune 100 companies, opening significant cross-selling opportunities across large enterprises in regulated industries. Second-quarter revenues rose 45% year over year to $61.9 million, though adjusted EBITDA remained a loss of $9.6 million, underscoring the profitability challenge that still faces the business. SoundHound's shares have declined 38.6% year to date, underperforming the broader industry, while the stock currently trades at a forward price-to-sales multiple of 10.32, slightly below the industry average. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for SoundHound's 2026 and 2027 loss per share has narrowed over the past 60 days to 18 cents and 13 cents respectively, though the 2026 figure remains wider than the prior year's loss of 13 cents per share. SoundHound faces direct competition from NICE Ltd. (NASDAQ: NICE), whose CXone platform combines AI-driven self-service, workflow automation and agent assistance tailored to banks, insurers and wealth-management firms. Five9 (NASDAQ: FIVN) similarly targets financial institutions with cloud-based contact-center solutions that emphasize controlled dialogue flows for highly regulated industries, helping enterprises maintain compliant customer communications. Five9's expanding Voice AI Agents platform supports complex, multi-step workflows, while both Five9 and NICE are well-positioned to intensify competitive pressure as SoundHound pursues deeper penetration in regulated markets. Sustained adoption across banking and financial services could meaningfully broaden SoundHound's enterprise revenue mix, but proof of secure, compliant deployment at scale will remain the critical test ahead. SOUN currently carries a Zacks Rank of 2, classified as a Buy rating.
Andy Dignan, President of Five9, sold 6,986 shares at $35.00 per share on 17 September 2026, totalling $244,510, according to an SEC filing. The sale was executed under a Rule 10b5-1 trading plan adopted over a year earlier in September 2025. Following the transaction, Dignan retains direct ownership of 237,614 shares, representing a 0.31% stake in the company valued at approximately $8.8 million. At the time of sale, Five9 had delivered a 33% one-year total return. Five9 provides cloud-based contact centre software with a market capitalisation of $2.6 billion and trailing-12-month revenue of $1.2 billion. The company's revenue grew 9% year over year, whilst operating margin improved to 4.7% from 2.5% the previous year.
Andy Dignan, president of Five9, sold 17,767 shares of the cloud-based contact centre software provider for $622,400 on 28 August. The transaction was executed under a Rule 10b5-1 plan established nearly a year earlier on 2 September 2025. Following the sale, Dignan retains 257,920 shares valued at $8.8 million based on the 28 August market close. The shares were sold at a weighted average price of $35.03. Five9's stock was priced at $34.56 as of 31 August, following a 28% total return over the preceding 12 months. The company, which provides cloud contact centre solutions on a subscription basis, has a market capitalisation of $2.2 billion and generated $1.2 billion in trailing twelve-month revenue. Total insider ownership at Five9 stands at 0.3%.
Five9 builds Humantic contact centers instead of full automation. Over the past couple of years, many companies have focused on increasing the share of contact center calls AI can handle without human intervention. That measure is starting to look too narrow, since the highest-value, most complex or most sensitive interactions are often the ones customers still want a person to handle. Cloud contact center software provider Five9 Inc. is taking a different approach with what it calls Humantic, a contact center model built around humans and AI agents working together rather than competing for the same calls. Amit Mathradas (pictured), chief executive officer of Five9, became CEO in February after leading Nintex Global Ltd. and, before that, serving as president and chief operating officer of Avalara Inc. The shift toward Humantic reflects a market correction, since full automation was never really the goal, even if it looked that way for a while, according to Mathradas. "We at Five9 have a very strong belief that the future world is what we are calling Humantic," he said. "Humantic is the combination of humans and agentic sitting in your contact center. I think there is a misconception that all humans are going away in the contact center. That is not true." Mathradas spoke with theCUBE Research's Bob Laliberte and ZK Research's Zeus Kerravala at "The AI ROI in Contact Center Summit," during an exclusive broadcast on theCUBE, SiliconANGLE Media's livestreaming studio. They discussed why Five9 is building a Humantic model of customer experience rather than pursuing full automation and what separates contact center deployments that succeed from those that stall. (* Disclosure below.) Why Humantic keeps three kinds of calls in human hands. Five9 draws the line around three kinds of interactions: complexity, value and vulnerability, according to Mathradas. A call involving a company's highest-value customer, a person navigating a death in the family or a request that requires walking through complex financial options warrants a human, while AI handles the high-volume, low-stakes cases, such as password resets and balance checks. "From the research we have done, we found one stat really amazing," Mathradas said. "Ninety-nine percent of business practitioners who are deploying AI think their contact centers and their serviceability has gotten better. Only 66% of actual users think the contact center has gotten better. More than 50% of them are saying the reason is, 'I want to access a human. and I don't get that.'" That gap helps explain why Five9 has pursued an open platform strategy rather than pushing customers onto an entirely new stack, an approach reflected in recent moves, such as opening the company's AI Agent Connect program to third-party voice AI vendors. One customer, moving and storage company PODS Enterprises LLC, is on pace to route more than 100,000 calls through Five9's Voice AI Agents by year's end, with the company reporting a 44% containment rate that exceeded its target. "The next big thing is around how these systems of record all work together to enable the next shift that is coming," Mathradas said. "Orchestration is the next big layer that a lot of customers should be thinking about and companies like us are thinking about in terms of where it needs to go." Here's the complete video interview, part of SiliconANGLE's and theCUBE's coverage of "The AI ROI in Contact Center Summit": (* Disclosure: Five9 sponsored this segment of theCUBE. Neither Five9 nor other sponsors have editorial control over content on theCUBE or SiliconANGLE.) Photo: SiliconANGLE. A message from John Furrier, co-founder of SiliconANGLE: Support its mission to keep content open and free by engaging with theCUBE community. Join theCUBE's Alumni Trust Network, where technology leaders connect, share intelligence and create opportunities. * 15M+ viewers of theCUBE videos, powering conversations across AI, cloud, cybersecurity and more * 11.4k+ theCUBE alumni - Connect with more than 11,400 tech and business leaders shaping the future through a unique trusted-based network Are you an AWS customer? Support SiliconANGLE financially by buying your AWS services from its Marketplace portal page and links: https://siliconangle.com/aws-marketplace/. About SiliconANGLE Media. SiliconANGLE Media is a recognized leader in digital media innovation, uniting breakthrough technology, strategic insights and real-time audience engagement. As the parent company of SiliconANGLE, theCUBE Network, theCUBE Research, CUBE365, theCUBE AI and theCUBE SuperStudios - with flagship locations in Silicon Valley and the New York Stock Exchange - SiliconANGLE Media operates at the intersection of media, technology and AI. Founded by tech visionaries John Furrier and Dave Vellante, SiliconANGLE Media has built a dynamic ecosystem of industry-leading digital media brands that reach 15+ million elite tech professionals. Its new proprietary theCUBE AI Video Cloud is breaking ground in audience interaction, leveraging theCUBEai.com neural network to help technology companies make data-driven decisions and stay at the forefront of industry conversations.
Five9 has granted a restricted stock unit award covering 26,982 shares to Sarah Bennett as an employment inducement. Bennett joined the company as Vice President of Revenue Strategy & Operations on 20 July 2026. The award will vest over three years, with one-third vesting on 3 September 2027 and the remainder vesting quarterly thereafter until fully vested on 3 September 2029. Vesting is contingent on continuous employment. The grant was approved by Five9's Compensation Committee under the company's 2026 Inducement Equity Incentive Plan. It was issued under Nasdaq's employment inducement exemption, which requires public disclosure of such awards. Five9 provides AI-driven customer experience platforms, serving over 3,000 customers and 1,400 partners globally.