Why Memory & MCP are the Foundation of Modern CX

Why is Memory Becoming One of the Most Important Capabilities in Customer Experience?

Short answer:
Because customers now assume they won’t have to repeat themselves—ever again.

That assumption didn’t come from contact centers. It came from something much closer to home.

Over the last year, millions of people have experienced a subtle but profound shift while using AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini. These systems don’t just respond intelligently in the moment—they begin to remember preferences, context, and prior interactions. And once you experience that, something changes.

You don’t want to go back.

That expectation is now walking straight into the contact center.

What do customers expect when they contact a company today?

They expect continuity.

Recent Avaya Connected Consumer Research makes this unmistakably clear. When customers speak with a human agent, four out of five say they either expect the agent to already know their history—or would strongly prefer that they do. The message is simple: starting over feels careless, not efficient.

And interestingly, customers apply nearly the same standard to AI.

Roughly 70% of consumers say they expect—or would find it helpful—for AI support agents to know their prior history as well. In other words, customers don’t sharply distinguish between “human memory” and “AI memory.” They just experience continuity—or the lack of it.

The expectation is no longer about who you’re talking to.

It’s about whether the system remembers.

Why does repeating yourself feel so frustrating to a customer?

Because repetition signals failure.

When a customer is transferred from an AI assistant to a human agent and has to re-explain the issue, something subtle but damaging happens. Trust erodes. Momentum is lost. The interaction feels fragmented.

94% of consumers say it’s at least somewhat important that a human agent already knows the context when a handoff from AI occurs. For nearly 70%, it’s very or extremely important.

That tells us something critical:

Continuity isn’t a “nice to have.” It’s now a baseline expectation for care.

And care—real care—requires memory.

Haven’t contact centers already tried to solve the problem of customers repeating themselves?

Yes. Repeatedly. And often unsuccessfully.

Traditional CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) architectures were never designed for continuous memory across interactions. They were designed for routing, queuing, and resolution—often in isolation from one another.

More recently, many organizations have layered AI on top of these systems. The result can look impressive on the surface: faster responses, automated tasks, shorter handle times.

But without continuity, these AI experiences suffer from a familiar problem.

They feel intelligent—and forgetful.

Each interaction resets. Each conversation starts cold. The system may respond fluently, but it doesn’t remember. And customers notice the gap immediately.

Why did customer expectations of contact center memory change?

Because customers have experienced something better.

When consumer AI tools introduced memory, they quietly rewired expectations. People learned—intuitively—what it feels like when a system builds on past interactions instead of discarding them.

That experience is now being projected onto every other digital interaction, including customer service.

The question for enterprises is no longer whether memory matters.

It’s how to enable it safely, accurately, and at scale.

Can AI really “remember” in the enterprise?

Not in the way humans do—and that distinction matters.

Enterprise-grade AI doesn’t require a single model to store every past interaction internally. What it requires is something more practical and more powerful:

The ability to reliably retrieve, apply, and pass forward context from systems that already hold customer history.

This is where architecture—not just models—becomes decisive.

How does Avaya Infinity approach remembering customer history differently?

Avaya Infinity was designed around a simple but often overlooked principle:

Customer experience is not a sequence of interactions—it’s a continuous relationship.

Rather than treating AI as a standalone feature, Avaya Infinity treats AI as an orchestrator across the entire customer journey. That includes human agents, AI assistants, analytics, and systems of record.

A key enabler of this approach is the use of open, standardized context exchange, includingAvaya Infinity support for the Model Context Protocol (MCP). MCP doesn’t “store memory” itself. Instead, it allows AI systems to securely access and apply context from across the enterprise—CRM systems, interaction histories, knowledge bases, and more.

The result is something customers immediately feel:

• AI assistants that understand what’s already happened
• Seamless handoffs where humans pick up the conversation, not restart it
• Interactions that feel connected, not stitched together

Memory doesn’t live in one place.

Continuity emerges from orchestration.

Why does contact center continuity matter beyond efficiency?

Because continuity changes the role of humans.

When AI handles routine tasks with context, human agents are freed to do what only humans can do: listen, empathize, and solve non-standard problems. This is where Avaya leaders often describe the future as humans and AI working in tandem, rather than in competition.

Efficiency improves—but more importantly, experience improves.

And experience is what customers remember.

What must CX leaders realize about using AI for customer interactions?

Customers are telling us something very clearly:

• They expect systems to remember
  
• They expect context to carry forward
• They expect AI and humans to operate as one experience

AI without continuity feels incomplete.
Automation without memory feels careless.

The next era of customer experience won’t be defined by how quickly problems are resolved—but by how seamlessly conversations continue.

And in that era, memory isn’t a feature.

It’s the foundation.

Read more about the importance of memory in customer experience and the capabilities of Avaya Infinity

Read more about how Avaya Infinity supports MCP (Model Context Protocol)

Take a self-guided tour of Avaya Infinity

Statistics sourced from Avaya Connected Consumer Research, a nationally representative survey of U.S. consumers conducted in January 2026. 

Comparison: Traditional CCaaS (Contact Center as a Service) vs. Avaya Infinity

 

Key Takeaways: The Future of Memory-Driven CX

• The "Memory Gap" in CX: While traditional contact centers prioritize isolated routing and resolution, modern consumers now expect a continuous relationship where they never have to repeat themselves.  Avaya Infinity enables this.
• The AI Expectation Shift: Widespread use of consumer AI assistants has "rewired" expectations; 83% of consumers now expect or prefer human agents to know their history, and 70% expect the same from AI support agents.
• Architecture Over Models: Enterprise-grade memory is an architectural capability rather than a model feature. It requires the ability to retrieve and pass context across systems rather than just storing data internally.
• Model Context Protocol (MCP) as an Enabler: Avaya Infinity utilizes open standards like MCP to allow AI systems to securely access and apply real-time context from existing CRMs and knowledge bases without needing a monolithic memory store.
• Continuity Equals Care: Fragmentation in a handoff is perceived as a failure; 94.5% of consumers state that preserving context during an AI-to-human transfer is critical to their experience.
• Empowering the Human Agent: When AI orchestrates routine context, human agents are freed to focus on high-value tasks such as empathy, judgment, and complex problem-solving.

Avaya Infinity & the Role of Memory in Modern Customer Experience

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why is “memory” becoming so important in customer experience?

Because customer expectations have changed.

Consumers increasingly expect companies to remember who they are, what they’ve done, and why they’re reaching out—without having to repeat themselves. This expectation has been shaped by everyday interactions with AI assistants like ChatGPT and Gemini, which now retain preferences and context across interactions.

In customer service, memory is no longer a convenience—it’s a signal of care.

2. Do customers really expect agents to know their history?

Yes—very clearly.

Recent Avaya Connected Consumer Research shows:

• 83% of consumers expect or prefer human agents to already know their history
• 70% say the same for AI support agents
• 94.5% say it’s important that context is preserved when transferring from AI to a human agent

These findings indicate that continuity is now a baseline expectation, not a premium feature.

3. Is this expectation different for AI versus human agents?

Not as much as many organizations assume.

While expectations are slightly higher for humans, customers largely apply the same standard of continuity to AI. They don’t distinguish between “human memory” and “AI memory”—they simply experience whether the conversation continues smoothly or breaks down.

From the customer’s perspective, fragmentation feels like failure, regardless of who (or what) they’re talking to.

4. Why do traditional contact centers struggle with continuity?

Because most were never designed for it.

Legacy contact center architectures were optimized for:

• Routing
• Queuing
• Transactional resolution

They were not built to preserve and apply context across channels, systems, and time. When AI is layered onto these architectures without orchestration, it often results in intelligent but forgetful experiences—where every interaction starts from scratch.

5. Does AI automatically “remember” past customer interactions?

Not by default.

Large language models do not inherently maintain long-term, enterprise-grade memory across customer interactions. What matters instead is whether AI systems can:

• Access prior interaction data
• Apply relevant context in real time
• Pass that context forward during handoffs

In enterprise environments, memory is an architectural capability, not just a model feature.

6. What role does Avaya Infinity play in enabling continuity?

Avaya Infinity is designed around the idea of the Connection Center, not just the contact center.

Rather than treating AI, humans, and systems as separate layers, Avaya Infinity orchestrates them as a unified experience. This allows context to flow across:

• AI assistants
• Human agents
• Customer data systems
• Interaction histories
• Analytics and insights platforms

The result is continuity that customers feel immediately—without forcing them to repeat themselves.

7. How does Model Context Protocol (MCP) fit into Customer Experience memory?

Model Context Protocol (MCP) provides a standardized way for AI systems to access real-world context through APIs.

Within Avaya Infinity:

• MCP helps AI agents retrieve relevant customer context
• Enables consistent handoffs between AI and humans
• Supports open, multi-model AI ecosystems
  

MCP doesn’t “create memory”—it enables access to memory wherever it already exists.

8. Why is openness and choice important for AI and memory?

The AI landscape is evolving too quickly for closed systems.

Avaya Infinity is built to support:

• Multiple AI models
• Open standards
• Emerging protocols like MCP

This ensures enterprises can adapt as AI capabilities evolve—without losing continuity, governance, or customer trust.

9. How does continuity improve employee experience?

When AI handles routine tasks with context, human agents are freed to focus on:

• Empathy
• Judgment
• Complex problem solving
• Relationship-building moments

This shift improves both agent satisfaction and customer outcomes, enabling what Avaya leaders often describe as humans and AI working in tandem.

10. What business outcomes does continuity enable?

Organizations that deliver continuity see improvements across:

• Customer satisfaction (CSAT)
• First-contact resolution
• Brand preference
• Customer loyalty
• Operational efficiency
• Long-term ROI

Continuity aligns experience and efficiency—rather than forcing a tradeoff between them.

11. What must CX leaders understand about memory and customer experiences?

Customers are no longer asking for smarter interactions.

They are expecting connected ones.

AI without continuity feels incomplete.
Automation without context feels careless.

The next era of customer experience will be defined by how well conversations continue—not just how quickly they end.

And that is exactly the problem Avaya Infinity is designed to solve.