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AI in the Enterprise – Are We Missing the Best Use Case of All?

In our world of enterprise communications technology, we have a pretty clear focus; it’s mostly unified communications as a service (UCaaS) and contact center as a service (CCaaS), with a bit of communications platform as a service (CPaaS). As analysts, we tend to stay close to what we know, and when tsunamis like AI come along, we have to do a big reset to now figure out how this wave impacts the spaces we cover.

With digital transformation, everything is becoming interconnected. We all have to work differently now, and with everyone in our world filtering AI through the lenses of UCaaS and CCaaS, it’s not that easy to see the bigger picture and perhaps new opportunities for AI.

That’s leading me to consider where the next growth vectors will be for AI in the enterprise workplace strategy, where C-suite executives must manage a near-impossible set of priorities to make the overall workings of the organization effective. UCaaS and CCaaS offerings already cover a fair bit of this ground – which is outlined in the next section - so there could be an opportunity here for these vendors to be more strategic. A key reason is how their platforms are already AI-driven, making them very adept at managing large pools of data, which is a core capability that senior management needs to develop better workplace strategies.

 

Today’s AI: Point Solutions for UCaaS, CCaaS and CX

You don’t have to look far to see how AI is being infused into UCaaS to make collaboration more effective, improve personal productivity and drive employee engagement. Prime examples include real-time transcription for most languages, automatic meeting summaries, reviewing emails to identify the most pressing messages. All enterprises want that, and it’s easy to see why the uptake for AI has been so strong for UCaaS.

The same holds for CCaaS, where AI is on a path to become the savior for improving customer experience (CX), agent engagement, operational efficiency and even protecting the brand. Leading examples include intelligent call routing, automated call summaries, alerts for script adherence, and sentiment analysis to better manage unhappy customers. Again, all contact centers want this, and given how far they have to go to meet today’s customer expectations, they can’t get there fast enough.

These storylines are becoming hard-wired now with CX and line of business leaders, and will keep all of us busy for the foreseeable future. As UCaaS and CCaaS vendors keep building out their AI-driven offerings, the outcomes are bound to get better, but in a way, they can also be viewed as point solutions. Very comprehensive point solutions, but point solutions in the sense that UCaaS is deployed over here, and CCaaS over there. Nothing wrong with that, but I’m after something bigger here.

 

Workplace Strategy – the Next Frontier for AI?

Now put yourselves in the shoes of senior management – those in the C-suite and tasked with corporate strategy. The pandemic-era onset of remote working was four years ago, but this group is still struggling with fundamental workforce changes arising from that time, such as the resistance to a full return to office, the normalization of hybrid and remote work, and the increasing urgency of employee engagement as part of attracting, nurturing and retaining top talent.

That’s just workforce management – these C-suite leaders also have to figure out how to mediate endless competitive pressure, changing customer buying habits, fleeting customer loyalty, and growing legal requirements including, but not limited to, regulatory compliance, data security, privacy and AI.

Consider the following figure which illustrates the leading workplace concerns in 2024. It is from a new study from Leesman, a workplace research and analysis company I’ve been following for years.

Leading workplace concerns in 2024
The State of the Estate: View from the Top – 2024, Leesman

The bubble chart above reflects the 2024 concerns from senior managers and leaders. While “workplace strategy” is a broad term, it should be clear how all of these elements reflect this term – they all play a role in creating an environment where workers and management are on the same page for creating a high-performing organization. Addressing each in isolation isn’t the issue; the strategy pertains to how management balances all of these, and given how hard this can be to do, it’s easy to see how “decision paralysis” sets in.

Yet planning is the domain of top management, and a core component of planning is being able to commit to informed, forward-looking choices. Letting paralysis set in and just bumbling along isn’t really an option. If anything, that reflects the wrong mindset about business strategy, as well as not having the right tools and processes to plan effectively. Can you see where I'm going here?

 

Data-driven Decision-Making is Key to Seeing the Bigger AI Picture

Management has been turning to data-driven decision-making for some time, and that is where AI can enhance their abilities to make good choices Having poor or limited data sets makes for ineffective decision-making, and the converse is often equally true. With today’s AI, management has never had a broader and set pool of data to work with, but they need the right tools – and internal expertise – to properly harness it.

My core mantra with AI has always been about use cases, in that decision makers should focus on the specific applications and problem sets that AI can address as opposed to focusing on the mechanics of how AI works. In that context, many of the needs shown above are already well along the AI path. UCaaS applications with AI are already being used to varying degrees for employee experience, office utilization, and workplace quality. AI-driven CCaaS is very much focused on cost reduction and agent/employee experience, and of course, when integrated with UCaaS, the analytics become even richer.

I’m not saying there’s a perfect overlap, but that graphic illustrates multiple touchpoints with the cloud communications platforms we know so well. That said, the cloud platforms are positioned mainly in their lanes, but at recent vendor events, I’ve been hearing more messaging about this bigger picture, where they envision their platforms being used to transform the entire workplace.

I’m actually hoping to hear more along these lines, because UCaaS is running out of room to grow, and CCaaS isn’t that far behind now. I think there’s an opportunity here for these platforms to help shape workplace strategies, but the vendors generally aren’t there yet, management isn’t likely thinking about them this way – yet.

 

Contact Center Automation As a Leading AI Business Use Case

In terms of AI roadmaps, the following figure provides some validation for the convergence of UCaaS/CCaaS and workplace strategies. In Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index Report, workplace strategy is nowhere to be found among the top use cases for AI, but contact center automation is the leading use case. Like workplace strategy, this is area where data-driven decision making could be a key use case.

The problem sets around CX are well-known, and with the stakes for bad customer service being so high, it’s become a C-level priority. AI has significantly enhanced the capabilities of CCaaS, and with so many of the outcomes being measurable, senior management is becoming more aware of how effective CCaaS can now be.

How businesses use AI, Stanford
Stanford University’s 2024 AI Index Report

 

Conclusion: Use AI to Forge Data-Driven Workplace Strategy Solutions

My analysis is based on two unrelated studies, but those two studies comprise a foundation for identifying workplace strategy as a broader opportunity for UCaaS and CCaaS vendors. However, these vendors have to think beyond UCaaS and CCaaS to make their platforms more strategic, especially in terms of how they can leverage AI to help address workplace strategy with their customers.

As per the first graphic, UCaaS and CCaaS platforms already speak to many of these needs, but they’re not offered or positioned as workplace strategy solutions. They’re not really built for that, but this is part of the AI story. The transformational nature of AI means that these platforms can be re-imagined to take things further and align more closely with what senior management needs.

Given how challenging these needs are to address, the interest will be there, especially in terms of supporting data-driven decision-making. This is really the North Star for senior management, and with UCaaS and CCaaS vendors now steeped in utilizing AI to harness vast amounts of data, they’re not as far removed from that center of gravity as you might think.

I didn’t say this will be easy, but as the UCaaS and CCaaS spaces get more crowded, the vendors will need new growth vectors, and their platforms are already well-positioned to support several workplace strategy elements. Of course, purpose-built AI-driven platforms for workplace strategy will emerge, but until that time, the opportunity is there for the taking.


This post is written on behalf of BCStrategies, an industry resource for enterprises, vendors, system integrators, and anyone interested in the growing business communications arena. A supplier of objective information on business communications, BCStrategies is supported by an alliance of leading communication industry advisors, analysts, and consultants who have worked in the various segments of the dynamic business communications market.