Migrating from Salesforce Open CTI to Salesforce Voice: A Natural AI Journey

Organizations everywhere are rapidly advancing their customer service capabilities through artificial intelligence (AI). For those using Salesforce Open CTI, moving to Salesforce Voice not only broadens your AI toolkit with functionalities like Agentforce, generative AI, and real-time voice transcription but also transforms your customer service into an AI-driven powerhouse. The migration doesn’t have to be an all-at-once, forklift upgrade, but a natural, use-case driven journey.

Salesforce Telephony – A Brief History 

Salesforce launched Open CTI (Open Computer Telephony Integration) in 2012. Open CTI allows for the integration of third-party CTI systems with Salesforce without the need for a client-side adapter, enabling features such as call controls directly within the Salesforce interface. Open CTI became the standard for Salesforce telephony integrations and is still widely used today.

In 2019, Salesforce introduced Salesforce Voice at Dreamforce. This solution unified voice calls, digital channels, and CRM data in real time, enhancing service agents’ capabilities by providing comprehensive insights across multiple channels during interactions. Like Open CTI, Salesforce Voice supports third-party providers through what Salesforce calls Salesforce Voice for Partner Telephony—or what many of us have come to call BYOT (Bring Your Own Telephony).

While both Open CTI and Salesforce Voice offer core telephony integration, Salesforce Voice goes far beyond. Open CTI provides the basics—click-to-dial, call logging, screen pops—while relying heavily on the third-party CTI’s own features. Salesforce Voice, on the other hand, is deeply tied to Salesforce’s AI and workflow engines. It unlocks real-time call transcription, AI-driven insights, and next-best-action recommendations that fundamentally change the agent experience.

It’s this gateway to AI that makes Salesforce Voice so compelling.

AI Capabilities Enabled by Salesforce Voice

Salesforce Voice enables a range of AI-driven features powered by Agentforce and generative AI:

1. Agentforce Agents – AI-powered bots that automate routine interactions and support omnichannel self-service.
2. Real-time Transcription & Summarization – Conversations are transcribed live, with automatic summaries and action items generated for agents.
3. Case Classification & Routing – AI routes cases to the right queue or agent based on context, reducing handling times.
4. Knowledge & Reply Recommendations – Suggested articles and generative responses appear in real time to improve first-contact resolution.
5. Next Best Action – AI recommends steps during calls, from solving issues to surfacing upsell opportunities.
6. Knowledge Creation & Insights – AI generates articles and trend insights from conversations, enriching the service knowledge base.

These features shift voice from a simple telephony channel into a strategic AI-enabled service hub.

Should I Start with Open CTI?

Despite its limitations compared to Salesforce Voice, Open CTI can still be a great first step in your journey. Much of the infrastructure for Salesforce Voice Partner Telephony overlaps with Open CTI, and platforms like DaVinci allow organizations to start with Open CTI while preparing for a smooth transition into Salesforce Voice.

With DaVinci, whether you’re starting with Open CTI or moving directly to Salesforce Voice, the same orchestration foundation applies. You simply add DaVinci Apps for Salesforce Voice, transcription, and AI use cases as you need them. For DaVinci customers, this isn’t a forklift upgrade; it’s a natural progression.

The key is to ensure your integration vendor supports Salesforce Voice today, builds for AI expansion tomorrow, and offers the flexibility to adapt as new AI use cases emerge. AI is evolving too quickly to lock yourself into a fixed-feature platform.

For organizations whose vendors can’t support this transition, switching to DaVinci as your Open CTI basecamp is a strong way to start the AI and Salesforce Voice journey.

Using DaVinci as Your Basecamp for Salesforce Voice

DaVinci is an open orchestration platform built for evolving customer service use cases. It’s not a static feature set, but a toolkit that adapts and grows with your business.

Customers often begin by targeting their highest-value AI use cases first:

• Hybrid adoption – running some agents on Salesforce Voice while others stay on Open CTI, with seamless call handoffs.
• Transcription-first pilots – capturing calls to train Agentforce before enabling full Salesforce Voice features.
• Incremental rollout – layering AI capabilities like recommendations, summarization, and Agentforce-guided workflows over time.

Every AI journey looks different, so flexibility is critical. By standardizing on DaVinci, you avoid duplicating environments and can progress at your own pace. And if you’re stuck in an inflexible vendor contract, AMC offers contract swap-outs to help migrate without added costs.

A Design + Build Approach to Migration

From our recent deployments, we’ve seen that a design-first, then build approach gives customers the clearest path forward. Here’s how we typically structure it:

1. Design Phase

• Assess current Open CTI and telephony infrastructure, including existing infrastructure around call recording (e.g., SIPREC, Teams Captions, Verint, etc.)
• Identify business outcomes and AI use cases that matter most (e.g., faster resolution, compliance transcription, upsell insights).
• Map dependencies: CRM workflows, existing IVR, security/compliance requirements.
• Produce a DaVinci Blueprint to guide the build phase.

2. Build Phase

• Foundation Build – Deploy DaVinci with the Open CTI App and/or Salesforce Voice App, centralizing on a single vendor framework.
• Voice Stream Enablement – Implement DaVinci Connectors (ex., SIPREC, Azure Communication Services, Verint) to access audio streams.
• AI Enablement – Layer in transcription, summarization, and Agentforce workflows aligned to the design priorities.
• Pilot & Validate – Roll out to a subset of agents, validate against design outcomes, and refine workflows.

3. Orchestrate Phase

• Scale AI-driven use cases across the organization.
• Continuously optimize transcription costs, knowledge creation, and Agentforce-guided workflows.
• Expand DaVinci orchestration beyond Salesforce into other enterprise systems as needed.