If your agents take calls inside Salesforce through a softphone in the utility bar, there is a good chance that softphone runs on Open CTI. Salesforce has now put a firm end date on that framework, and it is worth putting on your roadmap today rather than next year.
Key facts at a glance
- Open CTI has been in maintenance mode since 2020, with no new features.
- New Agentforce Service orgs cannot implement Open CTI (effective February 16, 2026).
- Open CTI retires with the Spring ’28 release; legacy connectors stop working on February 28, 2028.
- Salesforce recommends moving to Salesforce Voice, through a partner contact center or Agentforce Contact Center.
According to the official Salesforce Help article on the Open CTI retirement, Open CTI will be retired with the Spring ’28 release, and on February 28, 2028 the framework reaches end of life and “legacy connectors will no longer function.”
What Salesforce has actually announced
The announcement has two parts. First, new customers are already affected: Salesforce says new Agentforce Service orgs can no longer implement Open CTI. Salesforce’s Trailhead module on the retirement dates this change to February 16, 2026.
Second, existing customers can keep running Open CTI until the retirement date, but only in what Salesforce calls its final maintenance phase. The Open CTI developer guide is blunt about it: Open CTI is in maintenance mode, no new features or enhancements are being added, and development effort should move to Salesforce Voice.
Trailhead also notes that Open CTI has been in maintenance mode since 2020. In other words, the platform has been frozen for years. The 2028 date simply makes the end official.
What stops working
Salesforce lists what goes away when Open CTI retires. That includes the Open CTI JavaScript API, the call center adapter packages that telephony vendors built, softphone layouts and call center definition files, and any custom CTI logic such as screen pops and routing rules built on the API.
For many contact centers, that last item is the one that hurts. Years of small customizations, a screen pop here, a custom field update there, tend to pile up. All of it needs to be found, documented and rebuilt.
Why Salesforce is doing this
Salesforce frames the change as a move to a built-in, first-party approach. Its help article says Open CTI is “built on technology that limits our ability to deliver the cutting-edge innovations” customers expect, and that focusing on Salesforce Voice gives teams a more seamless experience.
Trailhead points to a practical gap too. With Open CTI, Omni-Channel routing had no awareness of voice, and call data such as transcripts did not land on core Salesforce objects, so AI tools like Agentforce could not use it. Voice moves calls into the same Omni-Channel widget agents use for digital channels.
What happens if you wait
Salesforce says teams that stay on Open CTI get only basic maintenance, miss new features, and face a higher total cost of ownership. After February 28, 2028, the connectors stop working. A contact center that has not migrated by then will lose its in-Salesforce calling.
Two years sounds like plenty of time. It is less than it looks once you account for budgeting, vendor scheduling, rebuilding custom logic, retesting reports and training agents. Teams that start in 2027 will be competing for the same partner and admin time as everyone else who waited.
What this means for your contact center
- Find out what you run. Salesforce suggests reviewing your org for users on a CTI softphone who are not yet on Salesforce Voice. That list is your migration scope.
- Inventory customizations. List every screen pop, flow, report and dashboard that depends on your CTI adapter or on call data stored in Task records.
- Talk to your telephony vendor. Ask whether they offer a Salesforce Voice (Partner Contact Center) connector, and what their timeline is.
- Budget early. Migration means new licensing, setup and testing. Getting it into 2027 budgets now avoids a scramble.
If you are already evaluating a new contact center as part of this move, it is a good moment to look at omnichannel options that work natively with Salesforce Voice, such as Vonage Contact Center for Salesforce.
Planning your Open CTI migration?
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