{"id":11549,"date":"2026-08-27T10:05:32","date_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:05:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/?p=11549"},"modified":"2026-08-27T10:09:13","modified_gmt":"2026-08-27T17:09:13","slug":"dialpad-phone-system-ucaas-demo-and-review-still-an-innovator","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/dialpad-phone-system-ucaas-demo-and-review-still-an-innovator\/","title":{"rendered":"Dialpad Phone System (UCaaS) Demo and Review. Still an Innovator?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>You have heard that Dialpad was the innovation leader in business phone systems from 2018 to 2025, but now that every competitor has caught up with AI, is Dialpad still the most innovative company in the space in 2026?<br>In this video, I got Dialpad on a call and had them demo their system inside and out so I could answer that question for you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><br>Want a demo and quote on Dialpad for your company? Ask me today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe title=\"Dialpad Phone System (UCaaS) Demo 2026 and Review. Still an Innovation?\" width=\"550\" height=\"309\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/Ip4_b0wZFzc?feature=oembed\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"mailto:AskMike@AeroComInc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Ask-Mike.png\" rel='magnific' alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10739\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<h2>About Me<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Mike-Smith-square-head-shot-2022-06-1.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10741\" width=\"70\" height=\"65\"\/><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Mike Smith has been helping companies select the best telecom, WAN, security, and cloud services since 1999. He founded AeroCom in 2003, and has been the recipient of numerous business telecommunications industry awards, including being recognized as one of the&nbsp;<a href=\"http:\/\/mydigitalpublication.com\/publication\/index.php?i=68145&amp;m=&amp;l=&amp;p=53&amp;pre=&amp;ver=swf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">top 40<\/a>&nbsp;business people in tech-heavy Orange County, CA. Follow Mike&nbsp;on&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/c\/Aerocominc\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">YouTube<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/www.linkedin.com\/in\/mikesmithaerocom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">LinkedIn<\/a>,&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/MikeSmithsBrain\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Reddit<\/a>&nbsp;and&nbsp;<a href=\"https:\/\/community.spiceworks.com\/people\/mike-aerocominccom?source=navbar-subnav\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">SpiceWorks<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2>Transcript<\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p>If your company has 100 or more employees and you would like pricing or a demo on Dialpad, do not call them directly. Reach out to me instead. Send me an email or give me a call at 714.593.0011. You will get much better pricing working through me than if you call Dialpad on your own, and it will not cost your company anything. I will get you introduced to the best sales rep to work with, oversee the demo, oversee the quoting process, and make sure you get the best fit right away so you avoid easy mistakes. Join the thousands of other companies who have used me to help their company make a better decision in a fraction of the time. Also do not forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel and go check out AeroComInc.com where you can read and write reviews on providers, watch videos, and filter providers by features.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dialpad&#8217;s Innovation Track Record<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From 2018 to 2025, <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/dialpad-ai-agent-live-demo-review-2026\/\">Dialpad <\/a>was genuinely the market leader when it came to innovation in business phone systems. In 2018 they launched AI powered live transcription. In 2022 they launched AI EAST. In 2023 they launched AI scorecards, AI playbook, and the AI coaching hub. Virtually all of those were firsts in the industry. It makes sense when you consider that their CEO is Craig Walker, the founder of Google Voice and a Cal Berkeley alum with a long track record of building innovative communication tools. But now in 2026, the entire market has caught up on AI. So the question is whether Dialpad is still leading or just keeping pace.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>First Impressions: The User Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first thing I noticed when I logged into the Dialpad softphone was that the layout took a moment to figure out. I tend to look to the left hand menu bar first, and at first glance the terms inbox, launchpad, all channels, threads, scheduled, and departments made me stop and concentrate. I look at phone systems every day, so if I have to stop and think, that is a flag worth noting. It is not terrible, but it was not immediately intuitive within the first five seconds.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The mobile app had a similar feel. Along the bottom I saw home, inbox, contacts, and keypad, which is simple enough. But once inside the home menu, terms like threads, catchup, coaching, teams, departments, and channels created the same confusion. It seems like Dialpad may be trying to be a little too innovative with some of their naming conventions. Once you get used to it, it is not bad. But the initial learning curve is worth knowing about before you evaluate.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Making a Call and In Call Features<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Once I found the upper left hand phone icon, making a call was completely straightforward. A very normal dial pad, pun intended. Once a call connected, the transcription window popped up immediately front and center, which makes sense because transcription is a core feature of the platform. The call control menu bar at the bottom was also easy to understand: AI transcript, mute, transfer, record, keypad, add a participant, share screen, park, and voicemail drop.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Voicemail drop is a great feature for salespeople making a high volume of outbound calls. You pre-record the perfect voicemail message and drop it into every call rather than recording a new one each time. It saves time and ensures consistency on every outreach.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Another solid feature for sales teams is local presence, which changes the caller ID to a local phone number in the city being called. Customers are more likely to answer a local number than an unknown out of area number, so this directly improves pickup rates for outbound sales teams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Call swap is another feature I personally use all the time. If you are on a softphone call in the office and need to move it to your mobile app, Dialpad makes it seamless. On the mobile app a large purple button appears that says move call here. You cannot miss it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Microsoft Teams Integration<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your company uses <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/microsoft-teams-phone-system-review-2026\/\">Microsoft Teams <\/a>heavily for instant messaging and conferencing, Dialpad can integrate with it. Inside Teams, the Dialpad logo appears in the left hand menu bar. When you click it, an iframe of the Dialpad app opens inside Teams so employees can make and receive calls without ever leaving the Teams app. The transcript and all call controls are available inside the integration as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Teams integration at this point is not innovative in 2026 \u2014 most UCaaS providers offer it. But it is solid and works well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>A Search Feature I Have Never Seen Before<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One thing that actually caught my attention as genuinely innovative was Dialpad&#8217;s universal search bar. When I searched the keyword guitar, it pulled up every interaction in the system containing that word and grouped them by contacts, AI recaps, messages, calls, and meetings. Replace guitar with a customer name, a product name, or a competitor and you can instantly surface every relevant interaction across your entire phone system in one place. I have never seen this with any other provider.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>In Call AI Features: Coaching Cards and Playbooks<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Here is where Dialpad starts to stand out. During a live call, if a specific word or phrase is used, Dialpad can automatically pop up a coaching card with relevant information. In the demo, the word frustrated triggered a card with medication information. Replace that with a competitor name and the coaching card could pop up a battle card showing your company versus theirs. Replace it with a product name and the card could pull up product details automatically. For new employees especially, this bridges the gap between brand new and experienced without putting the caller on hold to go do research.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dialpad also has AI playbooks, which are essentially customizable checklists for different call types. You can build separate playbooks for initial sales calls versus customer service calls. As the employee works through the call, AI uses natural language processing to automatically detect when a checklist item has been covered and checks it off. The employee can also check it off manually if AI misses it. A genuinely useful tool for making sure employees cover all the important bases on every call.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Supervisor Tools That Usually Require a Full Call Center License<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One of the most impressive things about Dialpad is that they make contact center supervisor features available as an add-on to their basic phone system license. Most providers reserve these tools for full contact center software, which runs $60 to $80 per user per month. Dialpad can add them to a regular UCaaS user.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>As a supervisor, you can click into a live call queue, see all current calls taking place, view live customer sentiment in real time, click into a specific call and see the live transcript, and then listen in, whisper to your employee, or barge in and take over the call entirely. The live dashboard also shows agent status, live call volume, service level agreement, speed to answer, calls on hold, and abandon rate. All of this on a basic phone system license is a genuine differentiator.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Admin Experience<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dialpad integrates directly with Microsoft Active Directory and Entra, so adding a user is as simple as starting to type a name. You can also set it up so that once a user is added to Entra it is automatically added into Dialpad. Setting up a call queue, which Dialpad calls a department, is also straightforward. You add a number, add operators, configure business hours, AI settings, holiday hours, and routing options including longest idle, fixed order, round robin, and simultaneous. Pre-built integrations are available directly inside the call queue setup and easy to click and configure.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>QoS Troubleshooting Tools<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dialpad has strong quality of service dashboards for administrators. You can view user call ratings, MOS scores for automated call quality grading, and call ratings broken down by office location and individual user. If a specific office is consistently rating calls poorly, you can drill down into whether the issue is with the ISP or the network. These are tools you typically see with contact center software, not basic phone systems.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Dialpad&#8217;s Custom Dictionary<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>One small but practical feature worth noting: Dialpad allows administrators to add words to the platform dictionary. If your company uses specific product names, company names, or industry terms that AI would likely misspell in transcriptions, you can add them manually so they are always captured correctly. A simple fix to a problem that frustrates a lot of companies using transcription features. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>The Most Innovative Thing Dialpad Is Doing in 2026: Skill Mining<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The last feature Dialpad showed me is genuinely the first of its kind that I have ever seen.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Dialpad&#8217;s AI agent itself is solid. In the demo, a caller reached a law firm AI agent and scheduled an appointment using completely natural, casual language. The AI understood context, checked calendar availability, collected information, confirmed details, and completed the booking seamlessly. The management analytics behind it are also strong, showing containment rate, resolution rate broken down by AI resolved versus transferred, skill success rate, average customer satisfaction scores, average handle time, guardian alerts for PII attempts, and guardrails for requiring authentication before accessing CRM data.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>But the feature that actually blew me away is called skill mining. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Skill mining uses AI to analyze your existing call recordings, chat records, and emails to identify specific areas of your business where an AI agent could replace a live person. It then tells you exactly what percentage of those calls could be automated and which specific skills would have the highest impact. Then it goes one step further and lets you test those skills before ever launching them to a real customer. Dialpad generates fictitious test calls and messages, runs them through the AI agent, and shows you which skills passed and which failed. The failures become training opportunities. You refine the agent, retest it, and only launch it once it is ready.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I have never seen anything like this from any other provider. For companies that know they want to explore AI agents but are not sure where to start or are nervous about testing it on real customers, this tool eliminates both of those problems before the AI agent ever goes live.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>So Is Dialpad Still the Innovation Leader?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Yes. Looking at the full picture, Dialpad has not innovated dramatically on the basic UCaaS features themselves, and frankly that is a good thing. Too much innovation on the basics creates the user experience confusion I described at the start. But on the advanced side, specifically the AI agent management tools and skill mining, Dialpad is doing things no one else is doing yet.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Is Dialpad the Right Fit for Your Company?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>That depends on how your company uses the phone system. If your team makes and receives a high volume of calls, uses a lot of features, and wants to leverage AI, Dialpad is a great fit. If your company barely uses the phone system and just needs basic answering and transferring, you are probably going to overpay for features you will never use. In that case something like Teams Phone System might be a better option. Go check out my Teams Phone System videos if that sounds like your situation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If your company has 100 or more employees and you are looking into Dialpad or Teams Phone System, send me an email or give me a call at 714.593.0011. I will get you better pricing, a better demo, and the best sales rep to work with. I have been a broker in this industry for over 20 years and I do not charge your company anything. Join the thousands of other companies who have used me to help their company make a better decision in a fraction of the time. Do not forget to subscribe to the YouTube channel and check out AeroComInc.com. Thanks for watching. I will catch you on the next one.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><a href=\"mailto:AskMike@AeroComInc.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\"><img loading=\"lazy\" width=\"200\" height=\"100\" src=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/03\/Ask-Mike.png\" rel='magnific' alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-10739\"\/><\/a><\/figure><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>You have heard that Dialpad was the innovation leader in business phone systems from 2018 to 2025, but now that every competitor has caught up with AI, is Dialpad still the most innovative company in the space in 2026?In this<span class=\"ellipsis\">&hellip;<\/span> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/dialpad-phone-system-ucaas-demo-and-review-still-an-innovator\/\"><\/p>\n<div class=\"read-more\">Read more &#8250;<\/div>\n<p><!-- end of .read-more --><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":11550,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[356],"tags":[993,1098,1105,1097,1092,1096,1091],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=11549"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/11549\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11550"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=11549"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=11549"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.aerocominc.com\/info\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=11549"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}