Simon Leyland on $50k MDF, agentic AI in the contact center, and why “bold and fast” is the only strategy that makes sense in 2026.
In this discussion, Associate Editor Rhys Fisher sits down with Simon Leyland, CEO and Co-Founder of CloudInteract – one of the UK's leading Advanced AWS Partners, built entirely around Amazon Connect.
With AWS putting up to $75k in Marketing Development Funds on the table for Connect implementations and new Agentic AI specialization categories, there's never been a more urgent moment to ask: is the traditional contact center industry running out of time?
Simon doesn't hold back.
In this candid conversation, Simon argues that the contact center industry is at the same inflection point newspapers hit in 2010 – and that the companies failing to move now will find themselves playing catch-up against competitors running AI agents around the clock.
Key Takeaways Include:
🔴 Why AWS is still being overlooked: even by large enterprises already spending millions with AWS on core infrastructure, Amazon Connect isn't on the radar. Simon explains the organizational disconnect driving that blind spot.
🔴 The 60-70% figure, explained: CloudInteract analyzed thousands of real calls and consistently found 60-70% are simple interactions. Simon breaks down what it takes to get from the industry's current ~10% automation rate to that ceiling.
🔴 Agentic AI vs. bots: technologically similar, but the stakes are entirely different when there's a customer on the end of the line in real time. Simon unpacks the guardrails, data requirements, and human change management piece that makes or breaks a deployment.
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