In a move aimed at bolstering its “cognitive collaboration” storyline, Cisco today announced a series of new capabilities, products, and integrations for its collaboration and contact center businesses, leveraging capabilities from its recent acquisitions of
Voicea and
CloudCherry.
Cisco Releases Meeting Assistant, Huddles Up
First, Cisco revealed an AI-powered voice intelligence capability, Webex Assistant for Webex Meetings, powered by Voicea technology. Through voice commands, Webex Assistant for Meetings can automate meeting tasks like taking notes, transcribing, and creating follow-up action items, Cisco said. Currently, Webex Room devices will allow for requests in English, but Cisco said Spanish recognition is on the way.
Beefing up its huddle room offerings, Cisco unveiled the Cisco Webex Room USB, a bring-your-own entry-level device for small and mid-sized enterprises. The “plug and play” video bar can be managed with other devices through Webex’s Control Hub, Cisco said.
Wrapping up the collaboration-related news, Cisco customers will now have the choice of storing their Webex Teams data — users, keys, messages, and files — in Europe or the U.S.
Contact Center Bots, Integrations, Cloud Services
Outside of video conferencing, Cisco made several announcements related to its contact center business, including new integrations, a management solution, and an enterprise-level service. Among the contact center-related news items are:
- Cisco integrates Voicea into Webex Contact Center – Similar to the integration announced for Webex Meetings, Voicea will transcribe customer calls and provide a summary of action items and key highlights, Cisco said. Data collected from Voicea then can automatically sync to an enterprise's CRM platform for ready access by agents and supervisors.
- Cisco deepens Google Cloud partnership with Contact Center AI (CCAI) – Using Google CCAI, Cisco will add AI-powered capabilities such as conversational IVR, virtual agents, and agent assist to its contact center offerings. With virtual agents that use Google’s natural language understanding technology, for example, enterprises will be able to automate requests like changing passwords or checking account balances, Cisco said. Customers can either say or chat a request and be intelligently routed to the best available contact center agent, according to Cisco.
- Webex Experience Management merges contact center and sentiment data – Based on technologies from Cisco’s acquisition of CloudCherry, the Webex Experience Management software breaks down data siloes by integrating with business applications, providing real-time visibility into the customer journey.
- Cisco reveals Webex Contact Center Enterprise – Built on the Webex Platform for Contact Center, the new contact center service supports up to 24,000 agents and is part of Cisco's Collaboration Flex Plan. Like other products in the portfolio, the service is supported by global data centers in North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia, according to Cisco.
Cisco shared these product updates at Cisco Live Europe, an annual event for customers and partners.
