Last updated: October 2026
If you are an existing Avaya customer, you have probably been handed the same three options from different directions. Avaya and its partners point you toward Avaya Infinity. Your finance team asks why you cannot simply keep what works. Competitors promise a clean break in the cloud. Each choice sounds reasonable in isolation, which is exactly why the decision feels harder than it should. This guide compares all three on the factor most buyers care about first, which is migration flexibility. How much room does each path give you to move at your own pace, change direction later and avoid being boxed in?
- Avaya Infinity gives the most flexibility in pace, because it runs beside Aura and Elite.
- Staying put gives the most flexibility this year and the least in three years.
- Switching vendors gives the most long-term flexibility, but only if your IVR logic moves with you.
- The flexibility of any path depends on how well you know your own estate, so start with discovery.
The Short Answer
For most existing Avaya customers, Avaya Infinity offers the most flexibility in how fast you move, while switching to a cloud platform such as Genesys Cloud CX, Amazon Connect or Google CCAI offers the most flexibility in where you can go next. Staying on your current system is flexible only in the short term. The right choice depends on whether you value pace control or long-term freedom more.
What Migration Flexibility Really Means
Migration flexibility is not one thing. It breaks down into four practical questions. Can you move one site, business unit or call type at a time? Can you run old and new side by side for as long as you need? Can you change direction later without starting again? And can you bring in new AI and channel tools without asking permission from a single vendor? Keep those four questions in mind as we go through each path.
Path 1: Move to Avaya Infinity
Avaya announced Infinity in April 2025. It is built on Edify, a cloud contact center platform Avaya acquired in 2024, and it was designed for exactly the customers asking this question. Avaya's CTO has described a hybrid deployment where Aura or Elite keeps carrying voice while Infinity adds a browser-based agent desktop, digital channels and orchestration. Infinity runs on Kubernetes and can be deployed on premises, in a hybrid model or on Azure, AWS and Google Cloud.
Pros for migration flexibility
- You can modernize one capability at a time while voice stays put.
- Deployment can sit inside your own data center, which helps regulated industries.
- No forced cutover date, because the old and new layers coexist by design.
Cons for migration flexibility
- Your direction of travel stays tied to one vendor's roadmap.
- A hybrid estate can become permanent if the second phase never gets funded.
- Changing vendors later means migrating twice.
Path 2: Stay on Your Current Avaya System
Staying is the most comfortable option today. Nothing breaks, nobody needs retraining and the budget line stays flat. The problem is that flexibility shrinks every year you stay. Older releases fall back to limited support, renewal pricing has been climbing since the 2023 restructuring and engineers who understand vectors and Orchestration Designer are increasingly hard to hire.
Pros for migration flexibility
- Full control over timing, at least until your release reaches end of support.
- Time to gather data and build a proper business case.
Cons for migration flexibility
- Options narrow as support windows close.
- When you finally move, you move under time pressure, which is the least flexible position of all.
Path 3: Switch Vendors to a Cloud Contact Center
Switching to Genesys Cloud CX, Amazon Connect or Google CCAI removes the on-premises dependency entirely. Genesys Cloud CX offers routing, digital, workforce engagement and AI in one suite. Amazon Connect charges by usage, so you only pay for the traffic you have moved. Google CCAI, built around Dialogflow CX, is strong for complex self-service.
Pros for migration flexibility
- Widest choice of AI models, partners and channels.
- Phased moves by business unit are standard practice and AWS publishes guidance for exactly this.
- Usage-based pricing on some platforms suits a gradual move.
Cons for migration flexibility
- A bigger one-time project than an Infinity upgrade.
- Integrations must be rebuilt against new APIs.
- If logic is rebuilt from memory, you lose rules you did not know you had.
Side by Side
| Flexibility question | Avaya Infinity | Stay on current system | Switch to cloud |
|---|---|---|---|
| Move one piece at a time | Strong | Not applicable | Strong with phased cutover |
| Run old and new together | Built in | Not applicable | Standard practice |
| Change direction later | Limited | Limited | Strong |
| Add any AI or channel tool | Within Avaya ecosystem | Very limited | Strong |
What This Means for Government, Healthcare and Education Teams
Government agencies should rank options by authorization first. Infinity's on-premises and private cloud deployment can suit data sovereignty rules, while cloud platforms differ in FedRAMP level and IL4 support. Health systems should weigh EHR integration and clinical uptime above all, which often favors a staged path with long parallel running. Universities and school districts tend to be most sensitive to budget and seasonal peaks around enrollment, where elastic cloud capacity is valuable.
From the field. From our delivery work: the customers who end up with the most flexibility are the ones who mapped their estate before choosing. On one Africa Telecom program delivered with Agnoshin Technologies, a scope planned as eight months of manual work was completed in 42 days because discovery was automated from day one.
How to Keep Every Path Open While You Decide
The most flexible move you can make right now costs very little. Build a complete inventory of your IVR flows, vectors, DIDs and integrations, with call volumes attached. That inventory makes an Infinity proposal easier to judge, gives a cloud vendor something real to quote against and shows exactly how much logic you would be carrying if you stay. Aumne ACT produces that inventory in 48 hours, without touching production.
Compare all three paths using your own data.
Book a free Aumne assessment and get your Avaya estate map in 48 hours and a fixed-fee migration quote in five business days.
Frequently Asked Questions
Usually in the first year, yes, because Infinity can sit beside your existing Aura or Elite voice infrastructure. Switching takes more planning up front, but automated discovery and flow generation bring a full IVR move down to about 45 days.
Avaya scores well on pace and continuity thanks to Infinity's hybrid design, and less well on openness and freedom to change vendors later, where cloud-native platforms lead.
You can, but you would be migrating twice. If switching is a real possibility, it is worth pricing both paths now.
Discovery. A full inventory of your estate costs little, changes nothing in production and makes every later decision safer.
Conclusion
Each path is flexible in a different way. Infinity lets you control the pace. Staying gives you time but takes it back later. Switching gives you the most freedom once the move is done. The worst outcome is choosing without knowing what you are moving. Map your estate, score each path against the four flexibility questions, and pick the one that still looks right in five years.
About the Authors and Sources
About the authors
Written by the Aumne AI migration team, who move Avaya, Cisco, Genesys and Nuance estates to Genesys Cloud CX, Amazon Connect and Google Dialogflow CX.
Disclosure: Aumne AI provides a migration platform. Statements about other vendors come from the public sources listed below.
Sources
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01Avaya newsroom, April 2025, https://www.avaya.com/en/newsroom/2025/news-250423/
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02TechTarget, Avaya's Infinity rollout bolsters cloud, on-prem options, https://www.techtarget.com/searchCustomerExperience/news/366622984/Avayas-Infinity-rollout-bolsters-cloud-on-prem-options
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03No Jitter, Avaya CTO David Funck on Building Avaya Infinity, https://www.nojitter.com/contact-centers/avaya-cto-david-funck-on-building-avaya-infinity
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04VMblog, Reimagining customer engagement with Avaya Infinity, https://vmblog.com/bylines/reimagining-customer-engagement-avaya-infinity-at-the-forefront/
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05Aumne AI, Avaya End of Life 2026, https://aumne.ai/blog/avaya-end-of-life-migration-guide