Microsoft, Cisco, AWS, More Tackle Future of Work with New Products
Contact centers and seamless integration of UC products were front and center at Enterprise Connect.
March 25, 2022
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RingCentral representatives outlined several of of the company’s products, but the one that got the most audience reaction was the AI-based Advanced Meeting Insights and Summaries. Kira Makagon, chief innovation officer, RingCentral, explained it’s like ESPN sports highlights.
“So, if you’re like me and always multitasking, you can with our AI-generated snippets, see what you missed. You’ll never have to worry about missing a meeting because you can catch up on what you missed.”
The product creates AI-generated keywords so users can easily scan the context of those meetings. Recordings automatically generate a highlight reel, with a distillation of key moments. Lastly, recordings will include a written summary of the live transcription.
Diego Pantoja-Navajas, vice president of new products, AWS, espoused the virtues of Amazon Connect. It’s a self-service-based contact center that enables customers at scale to deliver superior customer service at a lower cost. A user can set up Amazon Connect in only five minutes, AWS said. It can scale to handle millions of contacts and it can scale back down just as quickly. Customers only pay for what they use. It’s also designed to be omnichannel.
Amazon also launched Contact Lens for Amazon Connect, a feature that helps users follow the sentiment and trends of customer conversations in real time to identify critical company and product feedback.
In addition, Amazon has added voice biometrics, so an agents can recognize the person based on their voice.
Finally, Amazon Connect forecasting is a new option powered by machine learning, which aims to make it easy for contact center managers to predict contact volumes and average handling time with extreme accuracy. It also helps determine ideal staffing level and optimize agent schedules, the company said.
“We’re excited about the success our customers are having empowering them with what’s next.,” Pantoja-Navajas said. “The one constant in the world is that a tide is powering a wave of innovation that will transform coming together delivering new customer experiences. At AWS, we are committed to continue to be an innovator.”
“Meetings are still consuming the lion’s share of our time, up over 250% per week on average for a Teams user since the start of the pandemic. Ad hoc chats are on the rise as the average user is sending 30% more chats each week than before. We need to create new norms to reduce time spent in meetings and empower people to hit the off switch,” said Nicole Herskowitz, vice president, Microsoft Teams, during the Microsoft keynote at Enterprise Connect.
Reducing time and promoting efficiency was what Microsoft hoped to convey in unveiling a Teams lineup of products at Enterprise Connect this week.
During their keynote, Microsoft Teams representatives highlighted Operator Connect Mobile, a single SIM-enabled number for Teams Phone that serves as a desk phone number, mobile number and Teams number. No longer will individuals have to go to an app to make a call. The solution is both device and network-agnostic. Operator Connect Mobile will be coming to mobile operators shortly, Microsoft Teams announced at the conference.
Ninety percent of Fortune 500 customers today use Teams Phone for their internal communication and collaboration needs. One of the most asked-for features from users is to be able to customize and manage their call history. Microsoft announced this feature will be available next quarter.
Privacy is also a concern for customers. Microsoft Teams officials said they were happy to share that Teams calls will support full end-to-end encryption starting next quarter across all the endpoints.
Teams Connect share channels are coming to public preview this month. Users will be able to invite individuals or and entire team to a shared channel. These can either be from the user’s organization or from another organization that uses Azure AD. Once added to a shared channel, external users can access the channel right from their own Teams account without having to switch organizations, Microsoft said.
The company also announced Cameo, which overlays a Team’s video feed on a PowerPoint presentation. An integrated Cameo and PowerPoint recording studio experience will be available next quarter, making the dream of asynchronous presentations a reality.
In addition, the company announced speaker coach for Teams, which uses AI-based nudges to help speakers deliver more impactful presentations. For example, letting a user know when they’re speaking too fast or interrupting someone. It even reminds users to check in with their audience.
Lastly, Microsoft Teams said its language interpretation tool will use live interpreters to convert what users say into another language in near real time. Users can select up to 16 source and target language combinations. This will be available at the end of March.
Cisco announced that several of its Webex devices will now work with Apple AirPlay.
In addition, the company said users can now add their Webex business number as a second line to their mobile phone. It’s built into the data dialer on the phone. There is nothing to download, no separate app.
The Enterprise Connect audience may have had the biggest reaction when Cisco announced its relationship with Ford and the company’s electric vehicles. Imbedded into the EVs are a 15.5-inch screen and entertainment system called SYNC 4A.
“It’s a flexible system that uses HTML5, like a website, to create new software experience and be updated over the internet with new, modern features as they are released … [Ford] has unlocked the browser experience on SYNC 4A to connect with Webex. And soon, there will be a native Webex app right within the SYNC 4A screen for a seamless, collaborative experience,” according to Cisco.
“You’ve seen some amazing innovations and I can promise you there’s a lot more to come,” said Javed Khan, senior vice president and GM, Cisco Collaboration. “We’ve been working for years on solving some of our toughest problems whether you work from home or the office.”
And in the case of a Ford vehicle, when one is working on the go.
Zoom has expanded rapidly in three years. From 2019 until now, the company has grown from 74,000 clients to 500,000.
“You see, we went from a killer app to a killer platform,” said Gary Sorrentino, global deputy CIO, Zoom. “As companies are starting to embrace that fully flexible hybrid model, where you’re trying to figure out how to make it work, the business leaders of today look for the right technology and create the solution your employees are basically begging for.”
What they’re “begging for” are all the new products Sorrentino outlined in his talk. These include:
Zoom rooms: Conference rooms that make it easy to run or join video meetings.
Zoom rooms with digital signage: This allows users to take advantage of screens while there are no active meeting and use them as digital signs.
Zoom rooms smart gallery: The feature uses cutting-edge hardware and AI to create individual video feeds of in-room participants, giving remote participants a clearer view of their in-room counterparts.
Zoom whiteboard: A new whiteboard experience that enables easy-to-use visual collaboration before, during and after a virtual meeting, the company said. It will be virtual hub for real-time and asynchronous collaboration, creating more engaging and efficient meeting experiences.
Zoom virtual receptionist/kiosk: In the era of COVID, contactless experiences are desirable. Zoom provides no contact interaction with a building’s guests and the new virtual receptionist which safely greets them.
Lastly, there’s Zoom Contact Center. As the company describes it, “it’s an omnichannel contact center solution that’s optimized for video and integrated right into the same Zoom experience.”
Like many of the Enterprise Connect keynote presenters offering contact center solutions, Google Cloud announced the capabilities of its Contact Center AI, which has expanded. For example, Google Cloud is “expanding its partnership with Salesforce to integrate Contact Center AI with Service Cloud Voice to deliver a unified Service Cloud agent console and Customer 360.”
“[Contact Center AI] has the ability to run a complete contact center, including all things that are needed for the agent workstation, the integration with a lower-level telephony, and other communication channels,” said Andrew Moore, VP and general manager, AI and industry solutions, Google Cloud. “We can offer a turnkey contact center out of the box for those customers who want it.”
Moore added: “One thing that we are quietly confident about is our ability to make artificial intelligence as realistic and useful as possible. It’s not enough to provide a really smart technology. We really have to listen to customers to make sure we’re bridging that gap between what’s there now and what’s coming in the future.”
Like many of the Enterprise Connect keynote presenters offering contact center solutions, Google Cloud announced the capabilities of its Contact Center AI, which has expanded. For example, Google Cloud is “expanding its partnership with Salesforce to integrate Contact Center AI with Service Cloud Voice to deliver a unified Service Cloud agent console and Customer 360.”
“[Contact Center AI] has the ability to run a complete contact center, including all things that are needed for the agent workstation, the integration with a lower-level telephony, and other communication channels,” said Andrew Moore, VP and general manager, AI and industry solutions, Google Cloud. “We can offer a turnkey contact center out of the box for those customers who want it.”
Moore added: “One thing that we are quietly confident about is our ability to make artificial intelligence as realistic and useful as possible. It’s not enough to provide a really smart technology. We really have to listen to customers to make sure we’re bridging that gap between what’s there now and what’s coming in the future.”
Executives representing Microsoft Teams, Cisco Collaboration, Amazon Web Services, Zoom, RingCentral and Google Cloud presented keynotes at this week’s Enterprise Connect. Although the topics were diverse, some common themes emerged. Several speakers discussed the importance of the contact center to their companies’ business models. It left the audience wondering when the other firms will create tools to compete for contact center business.
To say that the pandemic influenced many products on display at the conference would be an understatement. The speakers addressed that in the keynotes, discussing that the future of work is a hybrid model. Moreover, the solutions their companies now offer are geared to that reality. This could be a virtual receptionist, a seamless Webex experience in an electric vehicle, or a highlight reel employees can watch of a missed meeting.
However, one speaker summed up this era best by staying true to basic business principals.
“We really have to listen to customers to make sure we’re bridging that gap between what’s there now and what’s coming in the future,” he said.
To see excerpts from the keynotes, click on the slideshow above.
Enterprise Connect is part of the Informa Tech portfolio of live events and digital platforms. it is operated by Informa, the parent company of Channel Futures.
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