Running the Amazon Connect CTI Adapter? Your Salesforce Voice Options Before Open CTI Retires

Amazon Connect has been tied to Salesforce for years, and many teams first connected the two through the Amazon Connect CTI Adapter. If that is your setup, the Open CTI retirement affects you directly. The upside is that Amazon Connect users get two migration paths built just for them, not one.

Here is why the adapter is in scope, how the two Amazon Connect paths differ, and what the latest AWS and Salesforce announcements add.

Why the CTI Adapter is affected

When AWS introduced the Amazon Connect CTI Adapter for Salesforce in 2017, it said the integration uses both the Amazon Connect Streams API and the Salesforce Open CTI API. The adapter places a WebRTC-based contact control panel inside Salesforce, with screen pops driven by softphone layouts in the Salesforce call center configuration.

Salesforce’s retirement notice says the Open CTI framework reaches end of life on February 28, 2028, when legacy connectors stop working. Until then, existing orgs can keep using it, but new Agentforce Service orgs cannot implement it.

Two paths designed for Amazon Connect users

Salesforce’s Trailhead migration module lists four Voice migration paths. Two of them are about Amazon Connect, and they split on one question: who runs the AWS side?

Path 2: Partner Contact Center with Telephony from Amazon Connect. This is for organizations that already run their own Amazon Connect instance and want to bring it into Salesforce. Trailhead says this path lets you bring that investment into Voice without reprovisioning. You keep managing the telephony backend through your own AWS account.

Path 3: Partner Contact Center with Amazon Connect. This is for organizations that want Amazon Connect telephony without managing AWS infrastructure. Salesforce provisions and manages the infrastructure through a managed AWS account.

The names have changed several times, which causes confusion. Trailhead says Path 2 was formerly called Service Cloud Voice (and later Salesforce Voice) with Partner Telephony from Amazon Connect. Path 3 was formerly Service Cloud Voice (and later Salesforce Voice) with Amazon Connect.

How to choose between them

Most CTI Adapter customers already have an Amazon Connect instance, which makes Path 2 the obvious starting point. It is likely the better fit if your team has invested in your own contact flows, AWS integrations and operations, and wants to keep control of them.

Path 3 suits teams that would rather hand the AWS operations to Salesforce and consolidate under one vendor relationship. The trade-off is less direct control of the underlying AWS account. For some teams, that is the point.

Neither path is a simple swap. On either one, calls move into the Salesforce Omni-Channel experience, so screen pops, routing and reporting need to be rebuilt around Salesforce Voice instead of softphone layouts.

What is new from AWS and Salesforce

Two announcements show where this is heading. In March 2025, AWS announced general availability of Salesforce Contact Center with Amazon Connect, which brings Amazon Connect’s digital channels and unified routing into Salesforce. In that post, Amazon Connect vice president Pasquale DeMaio said Service Cloud Voice with Amazon Connect had over 1,000 customers and more than 100,000 contact center agents.

Then on September 15, 2026, AWS and Salesforce announced an expanded collaboration. It includes Agent2Agent (A2A) support so Agentforce Voice and Amazon Connect Customer can communicate directly through real-time, bidirectional audio over WebSockets, with availability listed as Fall 2026. The same release says Salesforce Clouds are available in AWS Marketplace across 33 countries, and that customers can apply eligible AWS spend commitments toward Salesforce products.

What this means for your contact center

• Confirm what you run. If agents use the CTI Adapter’s contact control panel through Open CTI, plan a migration.
• Decide who owns AWS. Keep your instance (Path 2) or let Salesforce manage it (Path 3).
• Inventory your flows. List contact flows and integrations that support the adapter today.
• Check procurement. Ask whether eligible AWS commitments can apply to your Salesforce purchase.
• Watch the AI roadmap. A2A voice between Agentforce and Amazon Connect Customer is listed for Fall 2026.

If you are comparing vendors while you rebuild, Partner Contact Center Powered by Vonage runs on Salesforce Voice, and Vonage Contact Center for Salesforce brings voice, video, WhatsApp, SMS, chat and email into the same Salesforce workspace.

Sources

• AWS Partner Network Blog: Enabling Amazon Connect with Salesforce Service Cloud and Sales Cloud
• Salesforce Trailhead: Select Your Ideal Voice Migration Path for Success
• AWS Contact Center Blog: Salesforce Contact Center with Amazon Connect (Mar 17, 2025)
• Amazon Press Center: AWS and Salesforce expanded collaboration (Sep 15, 2026)
• Salesforce Help: Open CTI Retirement