The Big UC Show: The AI Hype Cycle in 2026, Zoom's AI Gold Star, and Checking in on Industry Events

In this January 2026 edition of the UC Big News Show, Kieran Devlin (Host, UC Today) sits down with a sharp panel: Blair Pleasant, Craig Durr (The Collab Collective), Jon Arnold (J. Arnold & Associates) and Dom Black (Cavell). Together, they unpack where Unified Communications, collaboration, and workplace AI are really headed—cutting through hype to ask the questions IT buyers and business leaders actually care about: Where’s the value, who’s getting it, and what needs to change for 2026 to be the year pilots turn into outcomes?

AI is everywhere—but the results aren’t. The panel reacts to sobering CEO sentiment on AI value, digs into why trust, training, and culture keep getting overlooked, and debates whether Zoom’s AI Companion benchmark moment signals a real shift toward orchestration and multi-model strategies. Then the conversation turns to a hot industry reality: with budgets tight and vendors building their own roadshows, are independent events like Enterprise Connect evolving—or sliding toward irrelevance?

In this episode, we cover:

Why the “AI value gap” is widening—and why revenue growth deserves as much attention as cost cutting
The overlooked blockers: responsible AI processes, transparency, user adoption, and prompting skills
What Zoom’s federated, multimodal approach suggests about the future: orchestration, connectors, and “best model for the job”
The 2026 events debate: why ISE is booming, why software shows must reinvent themselves, and why vertical-specific events may win

Next steps:
Audit where AI is actually used in your org (including shadow AI) and map it to measurable outcomes
Publish and socialize a responsible AI policy employees can understand and trust
If you’re attending ISE / IT Expo / CCW Berlin / Enterprise Connect, drop a comment with where you’ll be—UC Today’s team would love to connect