AWS History and Timeline regarding Amazon Connect - Overview, Functions, Features, Summary of Updates, and Introduction to Amazon Connect Customer

First Published: 2026-09-25
Last Updated: 2026-09-25

In September 2026, opening the Amazon Connect Administrator Guide reveals that the guide is now titled "Amazon Connect Customer Administrator Guide." The guide's Document history indicates that on 2026-08-04, Contact Lens was renamed to "conversational analytics" and "Amazon Q in Connect" was renamed to "agent assist." Earlier design documents and articles refer to these features by their previous names.

Features are not the only things whose names changed. On 2026-04-28, AWS announced that Amazon Connect would become a family of four solutions, and began referring to the previous product as Amazon Connect Customer. The name Amazon Connect itself has not disappeared; it now serves as the name of the family.

This article chronicles the history of Amazon Connect from its launch on 2017-03-28 to 2026-09-16, categorizing events into four types: Added, Regrouped, Renamed, and Ended. Each entry is listed under the name used on that specific date. The central question this article seeks to answer is: what remains for users after the name and structure have been reorganized?

Within what the primary sources state explicitly, the answer is as follows. For Contact Lens and Amazon Q in Connect, AWS product pages state that the functionality remains even though the name changed. The integrated API Reference states that it still uses the legacy product name interchangeably with the new one. On the verification date, the Service Authorization Reference displays connect and wisdom as IAM service prefixes. Furthermore, only two rows in this timeline are classified as "Ended," both related to Voice ID.

From One Product to a Family: Amazon Connect

This article solely focuses on the correspondence between dates, order, and names. AI Contact Center Architecture on AWS discusses the design of contact centers, while AWS Service Renames Reference addresses broader AWS service renamings and the identifiers that remain after those changes. This article leaves those topics to them.

Background and Method of Creating Amazon Connect Historical Timeline

This section will first outline how the timeline entries were structured, specifying the sources from which dates and names were extracted, and explaining what constituted each entry. All sources were accessed on 2026-09-25.

Why This Timeline Divides Its Rows into Four Kinds of Events

Over nine and a half years of Amazon Connect, various types of events have occurred. Both the addition of new features and the consolidation of existing features under different names are often announced in a similar manner. When presented on a single timeline, it becomes difficult to discern when names have changed.

Added — New features or solutions were introduced, either in preview or general availability.
Regrouped — Existing features were consolidated under a different name or organizational structure.
Renamed — A feature or the product came to be called by a new name.
Ended — Acceptance of new customers ended, or use of the capability itself ended.

⚠ These four categories do not represent an official classification documented by AWS. AWS does not formally divide Amazon Connect updates into these four categories; this categorization is included solely for improved readability within this article. Rows on a boundary are placed in only one category. For example, the outbound campaigns announcement from 2022-06-20 was both a general availability announcement and a renaming, so it is placed under "Renamed."

⚠ The level of detail in this categorization differs from the AWS Service Renames Reference. That reference categorizes changes in the names of services and products, classifying the transition from Amazon Connect Wisdom to Amazon Q in Connect as a "Successor" and the transition from Amazon Connect to Amazon Connect Customer as a "Split." This article categorizes events within a single product, so it places the former under "Regrouped" and splits the latter into a "Regrouped" row and a "Renamed" row. Both categorizations are based on the same source material.

The Primary Sources This Article Used, and What It Made into Rows

There are three primary sources for the dates and names.

1. AWS What's New announcements. This article uses the Posted on date from each announcement and takes the name from the announcement's headline and body. There were 700 announcements tagged with "Amazon Connect" as of the verification date. The oldest announcement dates back to 2017-03-28, and the most recent to 2026-09-23. ⚠ The list pulled by the tag is not exhaustive. For example, the announcement for the general availability of agentic CX designer on 2026-09-02 is an Amazon Connect Customer announcement but does not have the "Amazon Connect" tag, so it does not appear in this list.

2. The Document history page of the Amazon Connect Customer Administrator Guide. From the initial release on 2017-03-28 to the present, the guide's changes are listed with corresponding dates. ⚠ This table is structured with columns for "Change," "Description," and "Date." When reading the page as text, the date appears after each description. Pairing each date with the heading of the next row shifts every date by one row. For instance, the entry for the feature name changes on 2026-08-04 is directly below the entry for 2026-08-11, which can lead to confusion.

3. The AWS News Blog and product pages. This article uses two articles from 2021-09-27 and 2026-04-28, as well as the FAQ section of the Amazon Connect Customer product page.

⚠ Two of the AWS What's New announcement pages displayed no body text on the verification date. The announcement for the general availability of "Amazon Connect Wisdom" and the announcement for "high-volume outbound communications," both from the same day (2021-09-27), only show the title and date, with NO CONTENT displayed where the body would normally appear. For these two rows, the AWS News Blog post from the same day is the source.

Three kinds of dates became rows:

The date when a feature or solution first entered preview or became generally available.
The date when a feature's name or structure was changed.
The date when acceptance of new customers ended, or when use itself ended.

Region additions, language additions, pricing changes, and small improvements to existing features are not rows. This criterion produced 47 rows. In other words, please note that the items on this timeline are not all updates to Amazon Connect features, but are representative updates that I have picked out.

The Documentation Applies 2026 Names to Earlier Records

The oldest entry in the Document history dates back to 2017-03-28, the date Amazon Connect was launched.

Initial release
Initial release of the Connect Customer Administrator Guide.

The name used in the 2017 announcement was Amazon Connect. Among the primary sources this article checked, the AWS News Blog post of 2026-04-28 is the earliest to call the product Amazon Connect Customer. The entry for 2021-09-27 in the same table uses a name and description that both refer to a name introduced after the date of the entry.

Connect Customer Wisdom - General Availability
In November 2023, we released real-time agent assist functionality (formerly known as Amazon Q in Connect
and Amazon Connect Wisdom), along with generative AI-powered recommended responses, actions, and links to
more information.

The entry dated 2021 describes events from 2023 using the name associated with 2026. The entry for the Wisdom preview on 2020-12-01 also contains the same description.

⚠ The name replacement has also produced places where the same word appears twice in a row. The block below sets the What's New announcement of 2022-11-29 beside the November 2022 Updates rows of the Release notes in the Administrator Guide, as displayed on the verification date.

What's New (2022-11-29):
  Contact Lens for Amazon Connect now provides conversational analytics capabilities for Amazon Connect Chat,

Release notes, November 2022 Updates (as displayed on 2026-09-25):
  Released conversational analytics conversational analytics capabilities for Connect Customer chat
  Connect Customer conversational analytics provides conversational analytics capabilities for Connect Customer chat,

⚠ However, the replacement is not uniform. The entry for 2026-02-05 in the Document history is titled Amazon Connect now enables per-channel auto-accept and After Contact Work (ACW) timeouts.

This repetition of the same word also appears in other reference pages. The index of CloudFormation resource types displays the heading AWS::CustomerProfiles as Amazon Connect Customer Customer Profiles. At the beginning of the integrated API Reference, there is a section titled Connect Customer Customer actions.

⇒ The Document history can be used as a primary source for dates, but not for the names used before 2026. This article may take a row's date from the Document history, but not the name in a row dated before 2026. Names come from the What's New announcement and the AWS News Blog post of that day. ⚠ For rows with no announcement found for that day, the row itself states where the name comes from. The Global Resiliency row of 2022-10-19 and the Voice ID end-of-support row of 2026-05-20 are such rows.

The Day a New Name Appears Differs by Source

The date on which a new name appeared differs by source. This article confirmed the three below and records each by source rather than reducing them to one date. Two of them concern the product name, and one concerns feature names.

Source	Date	What it shows
AWS News Blog	2026-04-28	The article contains the sentence, `Amazon Connect Customer, previously known as Amazon Connect, ...`
What's New headline	2026-05-12	This was the first day the product name in a headline was `Amazon Connect Customer`. The previous announcement was on 2026-05-08, titled `Amazon Connect adds default Step-by-Step Guides for After Contact Work`.
Administrator Guide Document history	2026-08-04	There is a row that changed feature names. The row states that feature names throughout the guide were updated to align with the July 2026 naming guidance. ⚠ The Document history has no row that changes the product name.

⚠ The AWS News Blog article was updated after its initial publication. The end of the article states, Updated on April 29th, and the update timestamp in the page's metadata was 2026-09-10. Therefore, this article read the copy that the Internet Archive saved on the day of publication, 2026-04-28 at 18:24 (UTC), and confirmed that the sentence above was already present at that time.

⚠ The headlines did not switch all at once. After 2026-05-12, there were still headlines that began with "Amazon Connect," such as on 2026-05-15, titled Amazon Connect Cases now lets you edit related items and delete cases from the agent workspace, and on 2026-05-28, titled Amazon Connect’s AI assistant is now available in the UI builder. Even on 2026-08-31, the announcement for Global Resiliency used Amazon Connect Global Resiliency in both the headline and the body.

On 2026-03-05, an Amazon Connect Health announcement referred to the contact center product as Amazon Connect, a complete AI-powered contact center solution. As of that date, the product's name was Amazon Connect.

Among the sources this article checked, there was no announcement devoted solely to the product rename. Where the AWS Primary Sources Disagree About Launch Dates addresses how to decide which date to record.

Topics Covered in Other Articles

Contact flows, integration with Amazon Lex, agent assist (formerly Amazon Q in Connect), and the design of agentic self-service — AI Contact Center Architecture on AWS
Real-time voice AI agent architecture using Amazon Nova Sonic — Real-Time Voice AI Agent Architecture with Amazon Nova Sonic
The historical context and evolution of the Amazon Q brand — AWS History and Timeline regarding Amazon Q
A comprehensive overview of AWS services and features that have been retired, including Voice ID — AWS Retired Services History and Timeline
General information regarding service renames, and the identifiers that remain after a rename — AWS Service Renames Reference
A timeline of all AWS services, including those beyond Amazon Connect — AWS History and Timeline

This article does not cover changes to pricing or pricing structures. Regarding Amazon Connect Health, Amazon Connect Decisions, and Amazon Connect Talent, only launch rows are included; functionality will not be explained.

Amazon Connect Historical Timeline (Updates from March 28, 2017)

The tables for the following four periods form the core of this article. Each table has the following columns:

Date — The date listed as Posted on in the What's New announcements. Rows without announcements will indicate the source.
Event — Indicates whether a feature was Added, Regrouped, Renamed, or Ended.
Name on That Date — The name the source used on that date, copied as the source wrote it.
Summary — A description of what occurred. For features that have since been renamed, the current name is noted at the end.

Index:

2017–2019 - The period when it was announced as a single contact center service.
2020–2022 - The period when features with their own names multiplied and the first rename occurred.
2023–2025 - The period when generative AI features were added and the first regrouping took place.
2026 - The year it became a family of four solutions, and product and feature names were updated.

* You can sort the table by clicking on the column name.

2017–2019 — A Single Contact Center Service

For its first three years, Amazon Connect was announced as a single contact center service. Of the five rows this article took from that period, the only feature with a different name is Contact Lens, which was introduced in 2019.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2017-03-28	Added	`Amazon Connect`	Amazon Connect was launched. The announcement described the service as a cloud-based contact center service, stating, `This new service from Amazon Web Services is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon customer service associates around the world to power millions of customer conversations.` ⚠ The oldest entry in the Administrator Guide's Document history also appears on this date, but that entry refers to the guide as `Connect Customer Administrator Guide`. Current name: The product is now known as Amazon Connect Customer. Amazon Connect is the name of a family of four solutions. See: Introducing Amazon Connect / Document history
2017-11-20	Added	`outbound contact API`	Automated calls to customers became possible. The announcement provided examples such as confirming appointments and notifying customers of potential fraudulent activity. ⚠ This was initially offered as a limited preview. The announcement stated, `Outbound contact API is available in limited preview in all AWS regions where Amazon Connect is offered.` See: Amazon Connect Adds Automated Outbound Calling, Now Available in Preview
2018-03-30	Added	`outbound contact API`	The outbound contact API became generally available. This was 130 days after the initial preview. ⚠ High-volume outbound communications (2021) and outbound campaigns (from 2022) are separate announcements from this one. See: Amazon Connect Automated Outbound Calling is Now Generally Available
2019-11-21	Added	`web and mobile chat for Amazon Connect`	Web and mobile chat became generally available, allowing Amazon Connect to handle both voice and chat interactions. The announcement highlighted the use of the same tools for both voice and chat, stating, `By using the same routing, configuration, analytics, and management tools across voice and chat, Amazon Connect gives you a single unified contact center service across channels`. ⇒ This effectively expanded the range of interactions within a single service. See: Amazon Connect Launches Web & Mobile Chat for a True Omnichannel Contact Center Experience
2019-12-03	Added	`Contact Lens for Amazon Connect (Preview)`	Contact Lens was announced as a preview. The announcement described Contact Lens as `a set of integrated ML analytics capabilities for Amazon Connect` citing the ability to understand conversation sentiment, trends, and compliance. ⇒ This marks the first appearance of a feature with a different name within this timeline, separate from Amazon Connect itself. Current name: conversational analytics (2026-08-04). See: Introducing Contact Lens for Amazon Connect (Preview)

2020–2022 — An Expanding Suite of Named Features

During these three years, features bearing the Amazon Connect name were announced one after another. This timeline has five rows for 2020-12-01 alone. On 2022-06-20, the first name change occurred within this timeline.

First, the nine rows from 2020 and 2021.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2020-07-23	Added	`Contact Lens for Amazon Connect`	Contact Lens became generally available. This followed a preview period of 233 days. The announcement highlights its capabilities for call transcription, customer sentiment analysis, and automatic detection and redaction of sensitive information. Current name: conversational analytics. See: Contact Lens for Amazon Connect is now generally available
2020-12-01	Added	`Contact Lens for Amazon Connect`	Contact Lens added analysis during calls. The announcement details its ability to detect customer issues in real-time and allows supervisors to receive notifications based on speaking style, volume, and specific keywords. ⚠ The Document history row for the same day is titled `Real-time analytics using Contact Lens for Connect Customer`. The name Contact Lens stays; only the Amazon Connect part has been replaced. Current name: conversational analytics. See: Contact Lens for Amazon Connect launches real-time contact center analytics to detect customer issues on live calls / Document history
2020-12-01	Added	`Amazon Connect Customer Profiles`	A feature that consolidates customer information from multiple applications into a single customer profile was added. The announcement lists integrations with Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and Marketo. ⚠ The announcement does not mention the term "preview." See: Amazon Connect Customer Profiles for a unified view of your customers to provide more personalized service
2020-12-01	Added	`Amazon Connect Tasks`	A feature for prioritizing, assigning, and tracking agents' tasks was added. The announcement mentions support for tasks spanning multiple applications, such as CRM systems. ⚠ The announcement does not mention the term "preview." See: Amazon Connect Tasks makes it easy to prioritize, assign, track, and automate contact center agent tasks
2020-12-01	Added	`Amazon Connect Voice ID (available in preview)`	A feature that authenticates callers based on their voice characteristics became available in preview. The announcement describes its analysis of speaking rhythm, voice pitch, intonation, and volume, and notes that the preview began in US West (Oregon). ⚠ This feature has Ended rows in 2025 and 2026. See: Amazon Connect Voice ID provides real-time caller authentication for more secure calls
2020-12-01	Added	`Amazon Connect Wisdom`	A feature designed to reduce the time agents spend searching for answers became available in preview. The announcement states `Amazon Connect Wisdom is now available in preview` and lists integrations with Salesforce and ServiceNow. Current name: The feature was later incorporated into Amazon Q in Connect (2023-11-28) and then renamed "agent assist" (2026-08-04). See: Amazon Connect Wisdom provides contact center agents the information they need to quickly solve customer issues
2021-09-27	Added	`Amazon Connect Voice ID`	Voice ID became generally available. This followed a preview period of 300 days. The announcement also highlights its ability to detect fraudulent callers in real-time by comparing contact center instance watchlists. See: Amazon Connect Voice ID is now generally available
2021-09-27	Added	`Amazon Connect Wisdom`	Wisdom became generally available. An AWS News Blog post from the same day states, `Today, I am happy to announce the general availability of two of these capabilities, Voice ID and Wisdom, and the launch of a new one.` ⚠ The corresponding What's New announcement page had `NO CONTENT` when checked. This row is based on the News Blog post. Current name: agent assist (via Amazon Q in Connect). See: New for Amazon Connect: Voice ID, Wisdom, and Outbound Communications / Amazon Connect Wisdom is now generally available
2021-09-27	Added	`high-volume outbound communications`	A feature for handling large volumes of outbound communications entered public preview. The What's New headline states, `Amazon Connect now offers, in Public Preview, high-volume outbound communications for calls, texts, and emails`. A News Blog post from the same day states, `High-volume outbound communications allows, as the name implies, the initiation and management of outbound communications over voice, SMS, or email.` ⚠ The corresponding What's New announcement page had `NO CONTENT` when checked. Current name: outbound campaigns (2022-06-20). See: New for Amazon Connect: Voice ID, Wisdom, and Outbound Communications / Amazon Connect now offers, in Public Preview, high-volume outbound communications for calls, texts, and emails

Next, the nine rows from 2022.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2022-03-22	Added	`forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling`	Forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling features became available in preview. The announcement stated that it uses machine learning to predict contact volumes and average handle time. Current name: forecasting and agent scheduling (2026-08-04). See: Amazon Connect forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling, now available in preview
2022-06-20	Added	`Amazon Connect Cases`	Amazon Connect Cases, a case management feature, became available in preview. The announcement described it as allowing agents to create, collaborate on, and resolve customer issues that require multiple interactions and follow-up tasks. See: Amazon Connect Cases, now available in preview
2022-06-20	Renamed	`outbound campaigns`	High-volume outbound communications became generally available and, at the same time, the name was changed. The announcement stated, `With outbound campaigns, formerly known as high-volume outbound communications, you can proactively communicate across voice, SMS, and email`. ⇒ This is the first name change documented in this timeline. The name changed in the announcement of the move from preview to general availability, 266 days after the preview. ⚠ The announcement says nothing about what happens to what was called by the old name. See: Amazon Connect offers general availability of outbound campaigns for calls, texts, and emails
2022-10-03	Added	`Amazon Connect Cases`	Amazon Connect Cases became generally available. This occurred 105 days after the initial preview. See: Amazon Connect Cases is now generally available
2022-10-19	Added	`Global Resiliency`	Global Resiliency became generally available. The Document history describes it as a feature that allows you to support customers with high reliability, performance, and efficiency, anywhere in the world, while meeting international regulatory requirements. ⚠ The date for this row appears only in the Document history; this article found no What's New announcement for the same date. The Document history refers to this as `GA for Connect Customer Global Resiliency`, but that name dates from 2026. A What's New announcement from 2026-08-31 refers to the feature as `Amazon Connect Global Resiliency`. See: Document history / Amazon Connect Global Resiliency now supports cross-region routing of contacts across two active AWS regions
2022-11-29	Added	`Contact Lens for Amazon Connect`	The analysis capabilities of Contact Lens were expanded to include chat. The headline stated, `Contact Lens for Amazon Connect now provides conversational analytics for chat`. ⇒ Among the What's New announcements tagged Amazon Connect, this is the first whose headline contains the term conversational analytics. At this point, the term is used to describe the functionality of Contact Lens. ⚠ On the verification date, the Release notes in the Administrator Guide display this update as `Released conversational analytics conversational analytics capabilities for Connect Customer chat`. Current name: conversational analytics. See: Contact Lens for Amazon Connect now provides conversational analytics for chat / Release notes for Connect Customer
2022-11-29	Added	`Contact Lens agent performance evaluation forms`	Agent performance evaluation forms, allowing for the assessment of agent interactions, became available in preview. The announcement stated that evaluations could be scored using `Contact Lens’ machine learning powered conversational analytics`. Current name: performance evaluations. The product page FAQ indicates that the functionality, previously offered under the name Contact Lens, continues as conversational analytics, performance evaluations, screen-recording, and more. See: Amazon Connect announces Contact Lens agent performance evaluation forms (Preview) / Conversational Analytics - Amazon Connect Customer
2022-11-29	Added	`forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling`	Forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling features became generally available. This occurred 252 days after the initial preview. Current name: forecasting and agent scheduling (2026-08-04). See: Amazon Connect forecasting, capacity planning, and scheduling is now generally available
2022-11-29	Added	`step-by-step guides`	Step-by-step guides, designed to show agents the next action to take, were added to the agent workspace in preview. The announcement described it as a feature that estimates customer issues and displays the next action for agents on their screen. See: Amazon Connect now provides step-by-step guides in agent workspace (preview)

2023–2025 — Generative AI and the First Regroupings

In this period, generative AI capabilities were added, and features with their own names began to be gathered under other names. On 2023-11-28, the Wisdom functionality became part of Amazon Q in Connect, and on 2025-03-18, the next generation, which brings the AI capabilities together, was announced. The first Ended row of this timeline is on 2025-05-20.

First, the eight rows from 2023 and 2024.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2023-04-26	Added	`Contact Lens for Amazon Connect evaluation capabilities`	The evaluation features became generally available. This was 148 days after the preview. ⚠ This announcement calls the analysis used for scoring `Contact Lens’ machine learning powered speech analytics`. In the same place, the preview announcement had said conversational analytics. Current name: performance evaluations. See: Contact Lens for Amazon Connect evaluation capabilities are now generally available
2023-10-30	Added	`unified agent workspace`	Homegrown and third-party applications could now be added to the agent's screen (preview). The announcement gives an example in which an agent goes from checking customer details to processing a refund without leaving the screen. See: Amazon Connect supports third-party applications (preview) in the unified agent workspace
2023-11-28	Regrouped	`Amazon Q in Connect`	A generative AI assistant bearing the Amazon Q name became available in Amazon Connect. The announcement states, `This generative AI assistant, which includes functionality formerly available as Amazon Connect Wisdom, ...`. ⚠ The announcement does not state that Wisdom was renamed to Amazon Q in Connect. Instead, it indicates that Amazon Q in Connect incorporates features previously offered by Wisdom. ⇒ This article places this row under Regrouped rather than Renamed. This was 1,092 days after the Wisdom preview. Current name: agent assist (2026-08-04). See: Amazon Q in Connect offers generative AI powered agent assistance in real-time
2023-11-28	Added	`Amazon Connect Contact Lens`	Post-contact summaries powered by generative AI entered preview. The announcement describes how it summarizes lengthy conversations into concise summaries. ⚠ The headline of this row uses `Amazon Connect Contact Lens`, while the headline of the 2023-04-26 row uses `Contact Lens for Amazon Connect`. Current name: conversational analytics. See: Amazon Connect Contact Lens provides generative AI powered contact summarization (preview)
2023-11-28	Added	`analytics data lake`	A way to query contact center data without ETL entered preview. The announcement explains that records, after deduplication, can be directly queried and analyzed using services like Amazon Athena and Amazon QuickSight. See: Amazon Connect provides Zero-ETL analytics data lake to access contact center data (preview)
2024-03-25	Added	`Amazon Connect Contact Lens`	Post-contact summaries powered by generative AI became generally available. This was 118 days after the preview. Current name: conversational analytics. See: Amazon Connect Contact Lens now provides generative AI-powered post-contact summaries (generally available)
2024-11-22	Added	`Amazon Connect Email`	The email channel became generally available. The announcement says you can prioritize and assign customer emails and automate their resolution, and that it works with outbound campaigns. See: Amazon Connect Email is now generally available
2024-12-01	Added	`Amazon Q in Connect`	Amazon Q in Connect began to support customers' self-service interactions. The announcement states, `Amazon Q in Connect, a generative-AI powered assistant for customer service, now supports end-customer self-service interactions across Interactive Voice Response (IVR) and digital channels.` ⇒ Initially launched as a tool to assist agents, its capabilities have now expanded to directly engage with customers. Current name: agent assist (2026-08-04). See: Amazon Connect launches generative AI-powered self-service with Amazon Q in Connect

Next, the four rows from 2025.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2025-03-18	Regrouped	`the next generation of Amazon Connect`	The next generation of Amazon Connect was announced. The announcement described a comprehensive AI initiative spanning self-service, agent assistance, analytics, post-contact evaluation, and automated follow-up, stating that `The next generation of Amazon Connect can be enabled with a single click`. ⛔ The announcement also covers pricing, which is outside the scope of this article. ⚠ The Document history has no row for 2025-03-18. Current name: The description page the announcement links to is titled `Connect Customer` on the verification date and calls the other form `Connect Customer Basic` (see the "Current Overview" section). See: AWS announces the next generation of Amazon Connect where powerful AI improves every customer interaction / Connect Customer
2025-05-20	Ended	`Amazon Connect Voice ID`	The end of support for Voice ID was announced, and Voice ID stopped accepting new customers. On the same day, the What's New post `AWS service changes` lists Voice ID under `Services announcing end of support`. The Administrator Guide's end of support page states, `Amazon Connect Customer Voice ID will no longer accept new customers beginning May 20, 2025.` and also notes that accounts registered before this date can continue using Voice ID's functionality. ⚠ The same announcement, under `Services closing access to new customers` says access for new customers closes on 2025-06-20, but Voice ID is not in that list. ⇒ This is the first Ended row in this timeline. It occurred 1,331 days after general availability. See: AWS service changes / Amazon Connect Customer Voice ID end of support
2025-11-19	Added	`conversational analytics`	Conversational analytics was extended to customers' self-service conversations. The headline reads, `Amazon Connect now provides conversational analytics for voice and chat bots`. ⇒ Among the What's New announcements tagged Amazon Connect, this is the first whose headline contains the term conversational analytics without the name Contact Lens. It came 258 days before the Administrator Guide changed the feature names on 2026-08-04. See: Amazon Connect now provides conversational analytics for voice and chat bots
2025-11-30	Added	`agentic self-service`	Agentic self-service, powered by AI agents, was added. The announcement states, `Amazon Connect is introducing agentic self-service capabilities that enable AI agents to understand, reason, and take action across voice and messaging channels` and also highlights the integration of Amazon Nova Sonic's voice model for voice self-service. See: Amazon Connect introduces agentic self-service with more natural, expressive, and adaptive voice interactions

2026 — A Family of Four Solutions, and New Names

2026 is a year of names. In March, Amazon Connect Health joined, and on 2026-04-28, Amazon Connect became a family of four solutions. On 2026-08-04, four features in the Administrator Guide received new names.

First, the seven rows from March through May.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2026-03-05	Added	`Amazon Connect Health`	A solution for the healthcare industry became generally available. The announcement highlights five AI agents, with three – Appointment management, Patient insights, and Medical coding – listed as "Preview." ⚠ The announcement refers to the contact center product as `Amazon Connect, a complete AI-powered contact center solution`. On this date, the product's name was Amazon Connect. See: Introducing Amazon Connect Health, Agentic AI Built for Healthcare
2026-03-10	Added	`AI-powered manager assistance`	An assistant that allows managers to ask operational questions using natural language became available in preview. The announcement states, `Today, Amazon Connect announces the preview of an AI-powered assistant that enables contact center managers to get instant answers to operational questions using natural language.` ⚠ The Document history in the Administrator Guide includes an entry dated 2026-08-12 stating `Manager assist is available in preview`. The two records are 155 days apart, and neither source says whether they refer to the same functionality. See: Amazon Connect introduces AI-powered manager assistance (Preview) / Document history
2026-04-28	Regrouped	`Amazon Connect`	Amazon Connect became a family of four solutions. The AWS News Blog states, `Amazon Connect is expanding from a single product into a set of four agentic AI solutions designed to work within your existing workflows`, listing Decisions, Talent, Customer, and Health. ⇒ The name Amazon Connect moved from one product to a family of solutions. This occurred 3,318 days after the initial launch. See: Top announcements of the What's Next with AWS, 2026
2026-04-28	Renamed	`Amazon Connect Customer`	The previous product was renamed to Amazon Connect Customer. The same article states, `Amazon Connect Customer, previously known as Amazon Connect, delivers intelligent, personalized customer experiences across voice, chat, and digital channels.` ⚠ Among the sources this article checked, there was no announcement devoted solely to this rename. What's New headlines began using the new product name on 2026-05-12. The Administrator Guide changed feature names on 2026-08-04, but the Document history has no row that changes the product name (see the Background section). AWS Service Renames Reference classifies this transition as a "Split." See: Top announcements of the What's Next with AWS, 2026 / What is Connect Customer?
2026-04-28	Added	`Amazon Connect Decisions`	A solution for supply chain management became generally available. The announcement states, `Today, AWS announces the general availability of Amazon Connect Decisions`. See: AWS Announces Amazon Connect Decisions
2026-04-28	Added	`Amazon Connect Talent`	A solution for recruitment became available in preview. The announcement states, `Amazon Connect Talent is now available in Preview`. See: Amazon Connect Talent for AI-powered hiring (now available in Preview)
2026-05-20	Ended	`Amazon Connect Voice ID`	This was the end-of-support date for Voice ID. The Document history entry dated 2025-05-20 states that after this date, the Voice ID functionality would no longer be available in the console, the admin website, or the Contact Control Panel, and access to Voice ID resources would also be discontinued. The Administrator Guide's end-of-support page states, `After May 20, 2026, you will no longer be able to use Amazon Connect Customer Voice ID.` This was 365 days after Voice ID stopped accepting new customers. ⚠ This article found no announcement published on this date. The name in this row is taken from the announcement of 2025-05-20. See: Amazon Connect Customer Voice ID end of support / Document history / AWS service changes

Next, the five rows from June through September.

Date	Event	Name on That Date	Summary
2026-06-22	Added	`Agentic CX designer (NLX)`	A no-code canvas for designing AI-powered self-service experiences entered preview. The announcement states, `Amazon Connect Customer now offers Agentic CX designer (NLX) in preview` and also notes, `With this launch, you can also guide customers directly inside your web or mobile app with Live Sync.` ⚠ The Document history in the Administrator Guide records that Voice+ was renamed to Live Sync on 2026-08-04. This announcement uses the name "Live Sync" 43 days prior to that date. See: Amazon Connect Customer launches Agentic CX designer (NLX) in preview
2026-08-04	Renamed	`Feature name changes for Amazon Connect Customer`	Four feature names changed in the Administrator Guide. This Document history row states that feature names throughout the guide were updated to align with the `July 2026 naming guidance`, and lists four changes: `Contact Lens is now conversational analytics` `Amazon Q in Connect is now agent assist` `Forecasting, Capacity Planning, and Scheduling is now forecasting and agent scheduling` and `Voice+ is now Live Sync`. ⚠ This article could not find where the July 2026 naming guidance itself is published. See: Document history
2026-08-31	Added	`Amazon Connect Global Resiliency`	Contacts could now be routed across Regions to agents in two linked Regions. The announcement states, `Amazon Connect Global Resiliency now supports cross-region routing of contacts to agents across two linked AWS regions.` ⇒ Even after 2026-04-28, some announcements use the Amazon Connect name in both the headline and the body. See: Amazon Connect Global Resiliency now supports cross-region routing of contacts across two active AWS regions
2026-09-02	Added	`agentic CX designer`	Agentic CX designer became generally available. The announcement states, `Amazon Connect Customer announces the general availability of agentic CX designer`. This was 72 days after the preview. ⚠ This announcement in What's New does not have the "Amazon Connect" tag. See: Amazon Connect Customer announces general availability of agentic CX designer
2026-09-16	Added	`Amazon Connect Talent`	Amazon Connect Talent became generally available. The announcement states, `Amazon Connect Talent is now generally available`. This was 141 days after the preview. See: Amazon Connect Talent is now generally available

Current Overview, Functions, Features of Amazon Connect

This section sets out, as of the verification date of 2026-09-25, the units in which Amazon Connect is provided and what the old names are called now. This section does not cover the usage or design of its features.

Amazon Connect's Four Solutions

The AWS News Blog post dated 2026-04-28 describes Amazon Connect as a family of four solutions.

Amazon Connect is expanding from a single product into a set of four agentic AI solutions designed to work
within your existing workflows: Amazon Connect Decisions (supply chains), Talent (hiring), Customer
(customer experience), and Health (health care).

Solution	Business function (AWS's wording)	First announcement	Availability in that announcement
Amazon Connect Customer	customer experience	2017-03-28 (as Amazon Connect)	Launched
Amazon Connect Health	health care	2026-03-05	Generally available (3 of the 5 AI agents in Preview)
Amazon Connect Decisions	supply chains	2026-04-28	Generally available
Amazon Connect Talent	hiring	2026-04-28	Preview (generally available on 2026-09-16)

The Administrator Guide states which part of this family it covers:

Amazon Connect Customer is the current name for the product previously called Amazon Connect.
Amazon Connect is now a set of agentic AI solutions for different business functions.
This guide covers Amazon Connect Customer.

⇒ The term "Amazon Connect" in the title of this article refers to the name of the family, and also to the name of the product from 2017 to April 2026. For Health, Decisions, and Talent, this article holds only the timeline rows and the table above.

Old Names and Current Names

The names that changed within Amazon Connect Customer are listed below, starting from the old name. The direction is always from the old name to the current name.

Old name	Current name	Date of the change	Where AWS recorded it
Amazon Connect (product name)	Amazon Connect Customer	2026-04-28	AWS News Blog, Administrator Guide (What is Connect Customer?)
high-volume outbound communications	outbound campaigns	2022-06-20	What's New
Amazon Connect Wisdom	Amazon Q in Connect (successor), now agent assist	2023-11-28	What's New
Amazon Q in Connect	agent assist	2026-08-04	Document history
Contact Lens	conversational analytics	2026-08-04	Document history
Forecasting, Capacity Planning, and Scheduling	forecasting and agent scheduling	2026-08-04	Document history
Voice+	Live Sync	2026-08-04	Document history
next generation Amazon Connect	Connect Customer (another form is Connect Customer Basic)	This article found no dated AWS record.	Administrator Guide (Connect Customer page)

For four of the pairs in the table, the sources word the change differently.

Amazon Connect Wisdom → Amazon Q in Connect — The announcement on 2023-11-28 does not call it a rename; it says the new assistant includes the functionality formerly available as Wisdom. The use of "successor" in the table refers to this phrasing.
Amazon Q in Connect → agent assist — The Document history states Amazon Q in Connect is now agent assist. However, the FAQ on the Amazon Connect Customer product page (AI Agents for Contact Centers) answers the question What happened to Amazon Q in Connect? with functionality previously known as Amazon Q in Connect is simply one of our AI agents. ⇒ The Administrator Guide describes it as a feature name, while the product page describes it as one of the AI agents.
Contact Lens → conversational analytics — The term "conversational analytics" began appearing in announcements to describe Contact Lens functionality starting 2022-11-29, and appeared in headlines without the name Contact Lens from 2025-11-19. It replaced Contact Lens as the feature name on 2026-08-04.
Voice+ → Live Sync — The announcement on 2026-06-22 already uses the name Live Sync. In the sources this article checked, no announcement used the name Voice+.

The figure below shows only the pairs for which an AWS source records the old and the new name side by side. It does not show the next generation row, because this article found no dated AWS record of that change.

Old Names and Current Names in Amazon Connect Customer

Anatomy of the Reorganizations

This section lists the reorganizations of Amazon Connect one by one, in the same three columns as AWS Service Renames Reference.

What changed holds what a primary source said had changed.
What stayed holds only what a primary source said did not change, remains, or continues to be available. Where a primary source says nothing, the cell says "The source does not say." No cell is filled by inference from another row.
Where AWS recorded it holds the primary source that says it.

First, the five changes from 2022 through 2025.

Change	What changed	What stayed	Where AWS recorded it
high-volume outbound communications → outbound campaigns (2022-06-20)	The name of the feature changed during a general availability announcement.	The source does not say.	What's New
Amazon Connect Wisdom → Amazon Q in Connect (2023-11-28)	Offered as a generative AI assistant bearing the Amazon Q name.	Functionality previously available as Amazon Connect Wisdom. The announcement stated, `which includes functionality formerly available as Amazon Connect Wisdom`	What's New
Amazon Connect → the next generation of Amazon Connect (2025-03-18)	Announced as a collection of AI capabilities spanning self-service, agent assistance, analytics, post-contact evaluation, and follow-up. The announcement stated that this form could be enabled with a single click.	Amazon Connect core capabilities. The launch blog linked from the announcement states, `Organizations that want to continue to use Amazon Connect core capabilities can continue to do so.`	What's New, AWS Contact Center Blog
Amazon Connect Voice ID stops accepting new customers (2025-05-20)	Voice ID no longer accepted new customers.	Accounts that signed up before 2025-05-20 can keep using Voice ID features until 2026-05-20.	The end of support page in the Administrator Guide. The What's New post AWS service changes lists Voice ID among the services announcing end of support.
Amazon Connect Voice ID end of support (2026-05-20)	Voice ID features became unavailable in the console, the admin website, and the Contact Control Panel, and Voice ID resources became inaccessible.	The source does not say. The Administrator Guide gives steps for retrieving and deleting Voice ID domain data through the API, but does not say what happens to the data after the end of support.	The Document history and the end of support page in the Administrator Guide.

Next, the five changes from 2026.

Change	What changed	What stayed	Where AWS recorded it
Amazon Connect → Amazon Connect Customer, and Amazon Connect becomes the family name (2026-04-28)	Product name. Amazon Connect became the name for a family of four solutions.	The previous product name. The integrated API Reference notes at the beginning: `The legacy name is used interchangeably in this documentation.`	AWS News Blog, Administrator Guide (What is Connect Customer?), API Reference (beginning note)
Contact Lens → conversational analytics (2026-08-04)	Feature name throughout the Administrator Guide.	The functionality. The product page FAQ (Conversational Analytics) states: `While the name is no longer used, the functionality still exists in Amazon Connect Customer through conversational analytics, performance evaluations, screen-recording, and more.`	Document history, Product page FAQ
Amazon Q in Connect → agent assist (2026-08-04)	Feature name throughout the Administrator Guide.	The functionality. The product page FAQ states that the functionality previously known as Amazon Q in Connect is now one of the AI agents.	Document history, Product page FAQ
Forecasting, Capacity Planning, and Scheduling → forecasting and agent scheduling (2026-08-04)	Feature name throughout the Administrator Guide.	The source does not say.	Document history
Voice+ → Live Sync (2026-08-04)	Feature name throughout the Administrator Guide.	The source does not say.	Document history

In four of the ten, the primary sources do not say what stays. Of the six that do, the announcement of the change itself says so in only one, Amazon Connect Wisdom to Amazon Q in Connect. For the other five, an Administrator Guide page, a product page FAQ, a note in the API Reference, or a launch blog says so.

Connect Customer and Connect Customer Basic

The next generation announcement of 2025-03-18 links to the Administrator Guide page enable-nextgeneration-amazonconnect.html as its documentation. On the verification date, this page is titled Connect Customer and says the following:

All new instances are Connect Customer instances.
If your Connect Customer instance was created before Connect Customer was available, you might need to
update your instance to Connect Customer.
Connect Customer Basic does not include all the features available in Connect Customer.

⚠ This page uses the term "Connect Customer" in two different ways. One refers to the name of the entire product (Amazon Connect Customer), while the other refers to a specific form, paired with "Connect Customer Basic."

According to a copy of the page archived by the Internet Archive, the title on 2025-03-21 was Enable Next Generation Amazon Connect - Amazon Connect and the title on 2026-07-01 was Connect Customer - Amazon Connect Customer. ⚠ This article was unable to confirm, through AWS's dated records, the date when the next generation began to be referred to as "Connect Customer." The differences in pricing between the two forms are outside the scope of this article.

What the Reference Pages Showed on the Verification Date

The anatomy tables above hold what AWS wrote about each change. This section, separately, lists what the reference pages displayed on the verification date of 2026-09-25. The observation table does not claim that identifiers remain when a name changes. The information displayed on the verification date and what AWS stated as remaining are separate facts.

The Service Authorization Reference column lists the page title and the IAM service prefix.
The AWS CLI column lists the command names found in the index of the AWS CLI version 2 command reference.
The CloudFormation column lists the namespaces found in the resource type index, along with the headings listed in that index.

Current name	Service Authorization Reference	AWS CLI	CloudFormation
Amazon Connect Customer	Amazon Connect (`connect`)	`connect`	`AWS::Connect` (Amazon Connect Customer)
agent assist	Amazon Q in Connect (`wisdom`)	`wisdom`, `qconnect`	`AWS::Wisdom` (Amazon Connect Customer Wisdom)
conversational analytics	The operations are on the Amazon Connect page. Example: `connect:ListRealtimeContactAnalysisSegments`	`connect-contact-lens`	This article found no matching namespace in the index.
outbound campaigns	Amazon Connect Outbound Campaigns (`connect-campaigns`)	`connectcampaigns`, `connectcampaignsv2`	`AWS::ConnectCampaigns`, `AWS::ConnectCampaignsV2` (Amazon Connect Customer Outbound Campaigns, Amazon Connect Customer Outbound Campaigns V2)
Customer Profiles	Amazon Connect Customer Profiles (`profile`)	`customer-profiles`	`AWS::CustomerProfiles` (Amazon Connect Customer Customer Profiles)
Cases	Amazon Connect Cases (`cases`)	`connectcases`	`AWS::Cases` (Amazon Connect Customer Cases)
Voice ID (end of support on 2026-05-20)	Amazon Connect Voice ID (`voiceid`)	`voice-id`	`AWS::VoiceID` (Amazon Connect Customer Voice ID)
Amazon Connect Health	Amazon Connect Health (`health-agent`)	`connecthealth`	This article found no matching namespace in the index.

The display on the verification date shows three things:

Except for Health, the headings under "Service Authorization Reference" use names from before 2026. These include headings such as Amazon Connect, Amazon Q in Connect, and Amazon Connect Voice ID. Operations related to agent assist are written with a wisdom service prefix, such as wisdom:CreateAIAgent.
The headings in the CloudFormation index use newer product names. However, the namespaces AWS::Wisdom and AWS::VoiceID are based on feature names from before 2026.
Some AWS CLI command names are based on feature names from before 2026. These include wisdom (Wisdom), qconnect (Amazon Q in Connect), voice-id (Voice ID), and connect-contact-lens (Contact Lens).

The old API Reference URLs (for Amazon Q in Connect, Contact Lens, Voice ID, and Wisdom) all redirected to the first page of the integrated API Reference on the verification date. The title of that page is Welcome - Amazon Connect Customer, and the introductory note reads:

Amazon Connect now refers to a portfolio of agentic solutions for business functions. The
legacy product is now called Amazon Connect Customer, or simply Customer. The legacy name
is used interchangeably in this documentation.

⚠ The values in the observation table are what the pages displayed on the verification date. None of the sources this article checked says whether AWS will change them. The decision of whether to update IAM policies or templates is a topic covered in the AWS Service Renames Reference.

Frequently Asked Questions about Amazon Connect History

This section answers common questions about the Amazon Connect timeline.

When did Amazon Connect launch?

Amazon Connect launched on 2017-03-28. The What's New announcement stated that the service is based on the same contact center technology used by Amazon's customer service representatives around the world. The earliest entry in the Document history of the Administrator Guide also bears this date, although that entry calls the guide the Connect Customer Administrator Guide, a name that dates from 2026.

Has Amazon Connect been discontinued, or has it been renamed?

Amazon Connect is still offered. On 2026-04-28, the existing product began to be called Amazon Connect Customer, and Amazon Connect became the name of a family of four solutions: Customer, Health, Decisions, and Talent. Amazon Connect does not appear in the body of any of the AWS Service Availability Updates published in October 2025, March 2026, and June 2026. The What's New post AWS service changes of 2025-05-20 announced end of support for one feature, Voice ID.

When was Amazon Connect renamed to Amazon Connect Customer?

Different sources provide different dates. The AWS News Blog stated on 2026-04-28 that Amazon Connect Customer was previously known as Amazon Connect. The product name in What's New headlines became Amazon Connect Customer from 2026-05-12, but some later headlines still start with the old name. The Administrator Guide's Document history does not list a change in the product name; the entry dated 2026-08-04 refers to a change in feature names. Among the sources this article checked, there was no announcement devoted solely to the product rename, so this article does not reduce the dates to one.

Is agent assist the same thing as Amazon Q in Connect and Amazon Connect Wisdom?

They belong to the same lineage. Amazon Connect Wisdom became available in preview on 2020-12-01. An announcement on 2023-11-28 stated that Amazon Q in Connect includes functionality previously offered within Wisdom. However, it does not say that Wisdom was renamed. On 2026-08-04, the Document history recorded that Amazon Q in Connect is now agent assist. The product page FAQ describes the functionality previously known as Amazon Q in Connect as one of the AI agents.

Is Contact Lens still available?

According to the AWS product page, while the name is no longer used, the functionality remains. The FAQ on the Amazon Connect Customer product page states that features previously offered under the name "Contact Lens" still exist in Amazon Connect Customer through conversational analytics, performance evaluations, and screen recording, among others. The term "conversational analytics" itself has been used to describe Contact Lens functionality in announcements since 2022-11-29.

What happened to Amazon Connect Voice ID?

Voice ID stopped accepting new customers on 2025-05-20 and reached end of support on 2026-05-20. Accounts registered before 2025-05-20 could continue using the feature until 2026-05-20. The Administrator Guide suggests alternative solutions, including AWS Marketplace offerings from AWS partners, and a one-time password system using AWS End User Messaging SMS. A comprehensive overview of AWS service and feature retirements can be found at AWS Retired Services History and Timeline.

What was the next generation of Amazon Connect, and what is Connect Customer Basic?

Announced on 2025-03-18, it represents a collection of AI-powered features. The announcement links to a documentation page currently titled "Connect Customer," and that page says all new instances are Connect Customer instances. Connect Customer Basic, however, does not include all of the features offered by Connect Customer. This article was unable to confirm, through AWS's dated records, the date when the next generation became known as Connect Customer. Pricing differences are outside the scope of this article.

Do IAM policies need to change because of the new names?

The sources this article checked do not say, for the Amazon Connect rename or the feature-name changes, whether the IAM service prefixes change or stay the same. On the verification date, the Service Authorization Reference displays service prefixes such as connect, wisdom, and voiceid. However, that is what the page displayed on that date, not something AWS has said will stay. The AWS Service Renames Reference details how identifiers have been handled following each name change.

Why does the Administrator Guide show the name Connect Customer in rows from 2017?

The Administrator Guide displays the name "Connect Customer" in rows from 2017 because this name is being applied to records prior to 2026. For example, the entry dated 2017-03-28 in the Document history, as well as the entry dated 2021-09-27 referencing "Wisdom," are both labeled with the "Connect Customer" name. There are also instances in the Release notes, CloudFormation index, and API Reference where the same term is repeated. This is why this article takes names not from the Document history but from that day's What's New announcement and AWS News Blog post.

Where can I find how to design a contact center with Amazon Connect?

AI Contact Center Architecture on AWS covers the design of contact flows, Amazon Lex, agent assist (formerly Amazon Q in Connect), and agentic self-service. Information on using Amazon Nova Sonic for bidirectional voice streaming can be found in Real-Time Voice AI Agent Architecture with Amazon Nova Sonic. This article only provides dates, order, and names.

Summary

Amazon Connect was launched on 2017-03-28 as a single contact center service. Following the introduction of Contact Lens in 2019, a series of named features were added between 2020 and 2022, including Customer Profiles, Tasks, Voice ID, Wisdom, and Cases.

The renaming process began on 2022-06-20 with the launch of outbound campaigns. On 2023-11-28, the Wisdom feature was integrated into Amazon Q in Connect, and on 2025-03-18, AI capabilities were brought together as the next generation. In 2026, Amazon Connect became a family of four solutions, and the existing product began to be called Amazon Connect Customer. On 2026-08-04, four feature names changed, including Contact Lens and Amazon Q in Connect.

⇒ A name change and the end of a feature are separate events. Only two rows in this timeline are marked as "Ended," both about Voice ID. For Contact Lens and Amazon Q in Connect, AWS product pages state that the functionality remains. On the verification date, the reference pages display the connect and wisdom service prefixes, the wisdom and voice-id CLI commands, and the AWS::Wisdom namespace. wisdom and voice-id are feature names from before 2026.

⚠ Determining the source for each name is the methodology used in this timeline. Because the Administrator Guide applies 2026 names even to its 2017 row, the names in this timeline were taken from that day's What's New announcement and AWS News Blog post. The dates on which new names appear differ by source, and this article does not reduce them to a single date. All information is current as of 2026-09-25.

This timeline will be updated as Amazon Connect continues to evolve.

References:
Tech Blog with curated related content

Written by Hidekazu Konishi