Welcome to this week's No Jitter Roll, our regular roundup of product news in the communication and collaboration spaces. This week NJR highlights Salesforce’s AI Cloud solution that incorporates generative AI across its portfolio; product news from Verint which includes AI capabilities, CCaaS and employee experience management; as well as a new audio/video collaboration device from Lenovo, video bars from Sennheiser and Jabra that are designed to support the hybrid workforce; a global CCaaS partnership between Bandwidth and Miratech; and, finally, some generative AI news from Invoca.
The customer relationship management (CRM) provider launched AI Cloud, which is a suite of capabilities that deliver generative AI experiences across multiple Salesforce technologies, including Einstein, Data Cloud, Tableau, Flow, and MuleSoft.
The core piece of AI Cloud is Einstein which, according to Salesforce, powers over 1 trillion predictions per week across Salesforce’s applications. For example, with AI Cloud:
AI Cloud includes the new Einstein GPT Trust Layer, which will help separate customer data from the large-language models (LLMs) thus helping to maintain data privacy, security, residency, and compliance goals. The Einstein GPT Trust Layer will be generally available in June 2023.
Within its own infrastructure, Salesforce’s AI Cloud can also host LLMs from Amazon Web Services (AWS), Anthropic, Cohere and others. AI Cloud will help maintain customer prompts and responses in the Salesforce infrastructure.
AI Cloud will enable customers to use LLMs (e.g., CodeGen, CodeT5+, and CodeTF) developed by Salesforce AI Research to power advanced capabilities such as code generation and business process automation assistance. Salesforce has also adopted a Bring Your Own Model (BYOM) approach for customers who have trained their own domain-specific models. These models, whether running through Amazon SageMaker or Google's Vertex AI, will connect directly to AI Cloud through the Einstein GPT Trust Layer. In this scenario, customer data can remain within the customer’s trust boundaries.
In addition to these product announcements, Salesforce Ventures has expanded its Generative AI Fund, doubling the $250 million fund to $500 million to further its efforts to bolster the AI startup ecosystem and foster the development of responsible generative AI. Salesforce Ventures has also added Humane and Tribble to its AI startup ecosystem. These two companies join others the Fund has invested in, including Hearth, You.com, Anthropic and Cohere.
Consider the following thought leadership pieces about the use of generative AI:
The customer engagement solution provider made three announcements this week including its new Open Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) which serves as the foundation of Verint’s vision for customer experience (CX) automation. Verint’s Open CCaaS is designed to integrate with existing customer ecosystems.
At the core of Open CCaaS is Verint’s new Da Vinci AI which now delivers these two new capabilities:
Verint also introduced its Enterprise Experience Management (XM) product which will capture and analyze:
“Consumers today expect frictionless and personalized customer journeys. They expect issues to be resolved quickly. They also expect to be heard across all channels including Web, mobile, social messaging, chat, and phone, going beyond traditional surveys,” Daniel Ziv, Verint’s vice president, go-to-market, Experience Management and Analytics said in the company announcement.
Check out these articles to learn more about how different generations (Boomers, Xers, Millennials and Zoomers) view personalization and how that affects their loyalty as customers:
The ThinkSmart View Plus, an integrated device with a 27-inch multi-touch display, has been certified with Microsoft Teams, offering security features, providing access to Teams chat, calendar, and files, while also enabling workers to join meetings through the device. The device provides an integrated premium soundbar with two 5w speakers and four-mic array; the 4K IRGB camera provides auto framing and AI security features. The device also offers hotdesking, a passive stylus pen and a Microsoft whiteboard application.
Sennheiser recently announced its TeamConnect (TC) Bar Solutions, comprising two different products for small (TeamConnect Bar S) or mid-sized (TeamConnect Bar M) meeting and collaboration spaces, respectively. The TC Bar S features 4 microphones and 2 speakers, while TC Bar M has 6 microphones and 4 speakers. Both easily integrate with any meeting platform and can be further enhanced with other compatible products, including those from Sennheiser.
The TC Bars both feature multiple mounting options like wall mount, VESA mount, tabletop or freestanding. The option of using Dante for adding extension mics and/or a second external USB camera. (Dante is a multi-channel audio over IP standard.) Both bars feature built-in DSPs, as well as the option to adjust audio settings via Sennheiser Control Cockpit, which allows users to manually optimize room acoustics. The TC Bars also come with an automatic conference and music mode switch to provide the best audio to match the content.
Both devices have a 4K Ultra HD camera which features AI-based "Autoframing" and "Person Tiling," enabling remote participants to see everyone in the room. For basic adjustments, several features, like zoom and person tiling, can be found on the included remote control.
The TC Bar Solutions follow industry best security practices, and their configuration is password protected. The communication to the Sennheiser Control Cockpit, as well as 3rd party media control systems, is encrypted using Transport Layer Security 1.2. The TC Bars also support IEEE 802.1x network authentication.
Jabra announced new AI-powered features for its PanaCast 50 and PanaCast 50 Room System in collaboration with Microsoft. The PanaCast 50 video bar now includes Microsoft IntelliFrame with multiple video streams, as well as face and voice recognition functionality.
The multiple video stream functionality enables remote users in the Teams meeting to see who is in the meeting room via three video streams: current speaker, previous speaker, and panorama of the full room.
The voice recognition capability (which is forthcoming) allows in-room participants’ identities to be included in the meeting transcript, aiding AI based productivity tools. Upon authorization with individual enrollment, the forthcoming face recognition will enable in-room participants to display their names to remote users and populate the meeting roster.
Miratech, a CX implementation and engineering provider for cloud contact centers, has partnered with Bandwidth, a cloud communications provider, to accelerate digital customer experience (CX) transformation for global enterprises. The collaboration will enable Global 2000 enterprises to deliver cloud contact center environments that integrate an enterprise’s full communications stack with SaaS solutions such as workforce management (WFM), customer relationship management (CRM) and enterprise resource planning (ERP) tools, via Bandwidth's Maestro platform.
"Bandwidth Maestro is a platform we can scale on to manage complex call flows, business-critical applications and cutting-edge technologies already pre-integrated for faster time to value," Matthew Ainsworth, chief revenue officer at Miratech, stated in the company announcement.
Invoca, a provider of conversation intelligence AI, has announced beta availability of new capabilities that leverage a combination of generative AI, large language models (LLMs), voice biometrics, and patented machine-learning technologies. These new features complement Invoca’s patented AI technology, which is represented today in Invoca’s Signal AI offering, launched in 2017.
The product updates include the following:
In case you missed them, here are some of our top stories for the week:
