Five9 vs Observe.AI (2026)
Comparing Five9 and Observe.AI? Both are Contact Center & CCaaS and Voice & Phone AI tools in the directory, which is why buyers put them on the same shortlist. Below is a side-by-side look at pricing and an estimated monthly bill, channels, compliance claims, and integrations, plus when each is the better fit, so you can pick on the facts rather than either vendor's own sales page.
At a glance
| Attribute |
 Five9
|
 Observe.AI
|
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Cloud contact center platform with Genius AI voice and digital agents, agent assist, and analytics for enterprise support teams. | Conversation intelligence, auto QA, and real-time agent assist for contact centers. |
| Pricing | Paid · $119/seat/mo | Paid · Custom |
| Est. monthly cost | $1,190/mo $119 per seat/mo | No published price to estimate |
| Founded | 2001 | 2017 |
| Categories | Contact Center & CCaaS Enterprise Voice & Phone AI | Agent Assist & Copilots Contact Center & CCaaS QA & Conversation Analytics Voice & Phone AI |
| Channels | ||
| Chat | ✓ | ✓ |
| ✓ | — | |
| Voice | ✓ | ✓ |
| SMS | ✓ | — |
| ✓ | — | |
| Social | ✓ | — |
| Compliance (vendor-claimed) | ||
| SOC 2 | ✓ | ✓ |
| HIPAA | ✓ | ✓ |
| GDPR | ✓ | — |
| ISO 27001 | ✓ | ✓ |
| PCI DSS | ✓ | ✓ |
| EU AI Act | — | ✓ |
| Data residency | US, EU (Frankfurt, Amsterdam) | US, Canada, EU, Australia |
| Languages | 50+ languages (130+ for speech recognition) | 25+ languages |
| What the AI can do | ||
| Takes actions | ✓ | ✓ |
| Hands off to a human | ✓ | ✓ |
| Choice of LLM | Not verified | Not verified |
| Buying | ||
| Free trial | Not verified | Not verified |
| How you buy | Not verified | Not verified |
| Minimum commitment | 50 seats minimum | — |
| Company | Public company (NASDAQ: FIVN) | Independent, venture-backed |
| Works with | Salesforce ServiceNow Microsoft Dynamics 365 Zendesk Oracle Microsoft Teams Zoom RingCentral | Amazon Connect Avaya 8x8 Aircall Jira BambooHR |
| Key features |
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| Next step |
Full listing Visit site → |
Full listing Visit site → |
Estimates assume 5,000 conversations a month, 60% handled by AI and 10 agent seats, at each vendor's published list price (the cost calculator's model); treat them as a floor, not a quote. Compliance rows are what vendors publicly claim, and “Not verified” means we have not confirmed that fact yet, not that the tool lacks it.
Choose Five9 or Observe.AI?
Choose Five9 if
Best for: Enterprise contact centers that want voice, chat, email, SMS and social routing plus AI agents, agent assist and workforce management from one public company, with published seat pricing from $119 and SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001 and PCI DSS coverage, integrated with Salesforce, ServiceNow, Dynamics 365 or Zendesk.
- you need enterprise scale, security, and compliance
- you need Email, SMS, and WhatsApp coverage
- you need a vendor that publicly claims GDPR
Look elsewhere if you are a small team or want to try before buying: Five9 has no free trial or self-serve start, the entry price is per concurrent seat, and the AI capabilities sit in the higher Plus, Pro and Enterprise bundles that are quote-priced.
Choose Observe.AI if
Best for: Contact centers large enough that measuring 100 percent of calls and chats is a full-time problem, that want auto QA, real-time guidance and VoiceAI agents on Amazon Connect, Avaya, 8x8 or Aircall, with hosting in the US, Canada, EU or Australia and SOC 2, HIPAA, ISO 27001, PCI DSS and EU AI Act coverage.
- you need agent-assist copilots for human reps
- you need QA scoring and conversation analytics
- you need a vendor that publicly claims EU AI Act
Look elsewhere if you handle email as a primary channel or want published pricing: Observe.AI's verified channels are chat and voice, and pricing is custom-scoped to seats and interaction volume.
About Five9
Five9 is a cloud contact center platform, the kind that runs the whole operation: inbound and outbound voice, chat, email, SMS, and social messaging, plus routing, quality management, and workforce tools. Its Genius AI suite threads through everything, with voice and digital AI Agents that resolve customer conversations on their own, AI Agent Assist that transcribes calls and coaches live reps, and AI Summaries, Insights, and Knowledge doing the after-call cleanup. In 2025 Five9 pushed hard into what it calls Agentic CX, adding an Agentic Engine plus AI Trust and Governance controls.
The company has been at this since 2001, when it started in San Ramon, California, betting that contact centers belonged in the cloud back when they lived in server closets. It went public on NASDAQ in April 2014 at 7 dollars a share under the ticker FIVN. In 2021 Zoom agreed to buy Five9 for roughly 14.7 billion dollars in stock, then shareholders balked and the deal was terminated that September. Longtime CEO Mike Burkland retired, handing the job to Amit Mathradas in February 2026. Today Five9 claims more than 3,000 customers, including Alaska Airlines, PUMA, Omaha Steaks, Wyndham, and Exact Sciences.
Five9 publishes exactly two prices. Digital costs 119 dollars per concurrent seat per month for digital channels only, and Core costs 159 dollars with voice included. The Plus, Pro, and Enterprise bundles are quote only, and everything carries a 50 seat minimum plus usage based charges. Bundled AI covers 3,000 minutes per seat before metered fees kick in, and the serious stuff, AI Agents and virtual agents, is sold as add-ons through sales. Budget accordingly.
Choose Five9 if you run a genuine contact center with 50 or more seats and want voice, digital channels, and AI under one roof from a vendor that will still exist next year. Skip it if you are a small team wanting a simple helpdesk: Zendesk or Intercom will fit better, cost less, and skip the sales calls.
Read the full Five9 listing → · See Five9 alternatives →
About Observe.AI
Observe.AI made its name by fixing quality assurance, the least loved job in the contact center. Instead of a QA team sampling two percent of calls and arguing about scores, it transcribes and analyzes one hundred percent of interactions, scores them automatically against your rubrics, flags compliance risks, and turns the results into coaching. For support leaders it answers the questions that sampling never could: why are customers calling, which behaviors actually move CSAT, and which agents need help this week rather than at quarter end.
Founded in 2017 by Swapnil Jain and headquartered in Redwood City, the company raised a $125 million Series C led by SoftBank Vision Fund 2 in 2022, with Zoom as a strategic investor, and serves names like DoorDash, SoFi, Accolade, and Asurion. Like most of the conversation-intelligence category it has pushed aggressively into agents themselves: its VoiceAI agents now automate routine calls end to end, real-time assist guides live agents mid-conversation, and an Agent Harness handles the unglamorous work of testing and versioning AI agents before they meet customers.
The platform advertises more than 250 integrations across contact-center, CRM, and workforce systems, and pricing is custom, scoped to seat counts and interaction volume, with nothing published.
Observe.AI fits operations large enough that measuring conversations is a full-time problem: if you have dozens of agents or more and your QA process is a spreadsheet and good intentions, full-coverage automated scoring changes how you manage. Teams that just want a bot to deflect tickets have simpler options; teams that want to understand and improve every conversation, human or AI, should shortlist it.
Read the full Observe.AI listing → · See Observe.AI alternatives →
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