Short answer — there isn’t one single vendor, but market leaders fall into three overlapping groups. Representative leaders (and why they matter):

• Enterprise CCaaS / experience-orchestration vendors — focused on large contact centers and omnichannel automation: Genesys, NICE, Talkdesk. (genesys.com)
• Large CRM / customer‑engagement platforms with built‑in conversational support and AI copilots: Salesforce Service Cloud, Microsoft Dynamics 365 Customer Service, ServiceNow Customer Service Management. (salesforce.com)
• Conversational‑first / messaging and helpdesk platforms (widely used for chatbots, live chat, in‑app messaging and agent assist): Zendesk, Intercom, Freshworks (Freshdesk / Freddy AI), LivePerson. (zendesk.com)
• Cloud infrastructure & contact‑center building blocks used to run bots/voice: Amazon Connect (Lex/Contact Lens) and Twilio (Flex + AI integrations). (aws.amazon.com)
• Specialized conversational‑AI/platform vendors (for sophisticated bots, IVR and enterprise automation): Cognigy, IBM Watson, Google Dialogflow, Rasa (often evaluated in Forrester/Gartner/IDC reports). (businesswire.com)

Why the split matters

• CCaaS vendors (Genesys/NICE/Talkdesk) target enterprise contact centers with workforce management, telephony, analytics and native AI. (genesys.com)
• CRM/platform vendors (Salesforce/Microsoft/ServiceNow) embed conversational capabilities into broad service/workflow platforms so bots, agents and back‑office processes share context and records. (salesforce.com)
• Conversational‑first vendors (Intercom, Zendesk, Freshworks, LivePerson) are often faster to deploy for messaging/chat-focused use cases and include bot managers, routing and agent assist. (intercom.com)

If you want a short, objective way to pick between them, choose which matters most: contact‑center scale & telephony, CRM/workflow integration, messaging-first UX, or advanced conversational AI/IVR — and I can produce a 1‑page comparison checklist mapping vendors to those criteria.