Tata Communications argues CX needs orchestration, not just automation
VentureBeat published a sponsored article, produced in a business relationship with Tata Communications, built around comments from Gaurav Anand, global head of the company's Customer Interaction Suite. Anand's argument: enterprises are deploying AI agents, voice AI and automation across messaging, voice and digital channels faster than their underlying architecture can support. Most of that deployment has meant attaching conversational AI to legacy systems that were never built for it. The result, he says, is that many enterprises have adopted digital tools without ever building platforms that are truly integrated, scaled and capable of seamless orchestration. That gap forces human agents to piece together context across disjointed tools just to see what an AI system has already told a customer.
Anand frames the fix as a shift in enterprise priority from automation to orchestration: automation solves individual tasks, he says, while orchestration connects them into end-to-end outcomes, with AI agents, applications and human workers sharing one understanding of customers, processes and business intent instead of pulling from isolated system records. He also points to a wave of consolidation in the industry, with established contact center providers acquiring AI-native firms to close capability gaps, though the article names no specific deals.
Tata Communications' own answer is a product called Interaction Fabric, described as an orchestration layer that unifies contact center, messaging, collaboration, AI and customer data while coordinating agents, channels and enterprise systems in real time. The architecture rests on a context-driven design that keeps identities, conversations, transactions and operational data connected, so a customer moving between voice, WhatsApp, chat, email and CRM does not lose context along the way. Anand ties this to a broader concept of a common enterprise ontology, a shared vocabulary for customer data, products, policies, procedures, transactions and workflows across otherwise disconnected platforms, and to context graphs built on that ontology.
To illustrate how orchestration should split work between AI and people, Anand offers a concrete example: if a customer reports a fraudulent transaction, the AI can instantly block the card but cannot provide the emotional reassurance the moment calls for, so real-time sentiment analysis should route the call to a human agent once the technical fix is done. He describes the organizational side of the shift as two changes: IT and CX teams working together rather than separately, and communication APIs embedded into the enterprise's core so every function draws on the same customer context. He calls the resulting mindset shift, from reactive support toward proactive, predictive and personalized engagement, the 'three Ps.'
Looking ahead, Anand predicts CX will be shaped by real-time intelligence, growing agent autonomy and agent-to-agent interactions that increasingly resolve issues without a human in the loop, which he frames under a 'Total Experience' banner unifying customer, employee and AI-driven experience. Tata Communications positions its Voice AI, AI Workers and Total Experience Hub products as its route toward that vision. The article gives no pricing, release dates or availability details for any of these, and cites no customer names, case studies or measured results for Interaction Fabric or for orchestration generally.
Key facts
- Gaurav Anand, global head of the Customer Interaction Suite at Tata Communications, says enterprises have mostly bolted conversational AI onto legacy systems rather than building integrated, orchestrated platforms.
- The stated shift in enterprise priority: automation solves individual tasks, orchestration connects them into end-to-end outcomes across AI agents, applications and human workers.
- Tata Communications' product for this is Interaction Fabric, an orchestration layer unifying contact center, messaging, collaboration, AI and customer data across channels in real time.
- Anand's fraud-alert example: AI blocks a compromised card instantly, then hands the customer to a human agent for the emotional reassurance the AI cannot provide.
- Tata Communications frames its roadmap as Voice AI, AI Workers and Total Experience Hub, with no pricing, release dates or customer results disclosed in the article.
Why it matters
The piece names a real architectural problem: enterprises have layered AI agents and voice bots onto systems designed for linear, human-driven routing, and the resulting patchwork forces human agents to reconstruct context an AI system already gathered. Anand's framing, that the industry's priority is moving from automation (individual tasks) to orchestration (end-to-end coordination across agents, applications and people), captures a shift several vendors are making as agent deployments multiply inside one company. Its value is as a named articulation of that shift by an executive building products around it, not as independent research into how widespread the problem is.
Who it affects
Enterprise CX and contact center teams, the IT departments that own the underlying systems, and the human agents who currently absorb the cognitive load of stitching together disconnected tools. Customers are the ones who feel the result directly: repeating themselves across channels, or hitting an AI voice menu that just recreates the old deterministic phone tree. The article also gestures at contact center vendors more broadly, saying established providers are acquiring AI-native firms, but names none of them.
How to use it
There is no product to buy here in the ordinary sense: this is Tata Communications describing its own architecture, Interaction Fabric, built on a shared enterprise ontology and context graph, alongside a Voice AI, AI Workers and Total Experience Hub product line. Anand's prescription for an organization trying to do this itself: consolidate data and point solutions onto one cloud-first platform, get IT and CX teams working together rather than in separate lanes, and embed communication APIs into the enterprise's core so every function draws on the same customer context. No pricing, release timeline or availability is given for any Tata Communications product named.
How solid is it
This is sponsored content: VentureBeat states plainly that it was produced in a business relationship with Tata Communications, and its only named source is Anand, an executive at the company whose product the piece describes. There are no customer names, case studies, adoption figures, or measured efficiency or revenue results for Interaction Fabric or for orchestration generally, and the 'wave of consolidation' Anand cites is not backed by named deals. Treat it as one vendor's thought-leadership framing of a market trend it is positioned to sell into, not as independent reporting or data.
Risks and caveats
Every specific claim of impact (that orchestration beats automation, that a shared ontology fixes silos, that Total Experience is the future of CX) comes from the vendor building the product being described, with no outside voice, competitor comparison, or customer evidence to weigh it against. Readers looking for evidence that this approach works in practice, rather than a description of why it should, will not find it in this article.
“If a customer is facing a sudden crisis like a fraudulent transaction, the AI can instantly block the card, but it cannot provide the emotional comfort and delicate communication needed in that moment of panic. The answer to the dilemma is intelligent orchestration, rather than a choice between systems.”
— Gaurav Anand, global head of the Customer Interaction Suite at Tata Communications