Over the past decade, Webex has been on a journey to improve how people communicate and collaborate. In this time, regardless of modality – messaging, voice, or video, synchronous or asynchronous – one constant has emerged: Experience Matters. Radically simple to articulate yet exceptionally complex to deliver, the very best experience is what we deliver across our portfolio: Webex Suite, Webex Customer Experience, and Cisco Collaboration Devices.
The latest technology and most sophisticated algorithms are meaningless if they don’t enable you to share your best ideas and collaborate productively. Committed to delivering exceptional experiences, we are leveraging AI to reimagine collaboration among employees and communication with customers.
This year, we have intensified our focus on “Experience” by continuing to invest in AI to make interactions clearer, more immersive, more effective, and even more human. The next chapter of Webex is about Experience, Amplified.
A new era of customer experience with the AI Agent
We all know what a great customer experience feels like, but delivering great Customer Experience is something easier said than done. If it’s not thoughtfully applied, even the best technology can get in the way. For example, only 25% of customers were very satisfied with their last service engagement. This is why service technology, especially self-service, needs to evolve. Enter the Webex AI Agent. These agents deliver a true self-service experience with natural, conversational language, as well as orchestration and automation for a complete user journey. Imagine voice interactions that sound and feel like conversing with a real person—thanks to the agent’s human-like intonation, language understanding, and ability to follow context within conversations. Digital interactions via texts or online chats are equally seamless and informed, making customers feel as though they have a personal concierge at their service. Powerful, out-of-the-box integrations with leading back-end systems mean end-customers can use the Webex AI Agent not only to get their questions answered, but also to fulfill actions for complete resolution of their issues. This is the most human-like virtual agent experience ever, leveraging AI to create genuine conversations tailored to your business with domain-specific data, transitioning smoothly between topics without losing context.
Building these virtual agents couldn’t be easier, thanks to the Webex AI Agent Studio. With a simple step-by-step interface, contact center managers can create powerful virtual agents in minutes. With the super-human scale of the AI Agents, businesses can increase frontline capacity and offer 24/7 service without adding staffing. This will allow human agents to focus on more complex issues, improving both the self-service and agent-assisted experience.
New ways to work with the AI Assistant
Webex AI Agents will revolutionize the self-service experience, but what about human agents? Agents and supervisors can take advantage of the AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center. Innovations like Topic Analytics and Automatic Customer Satisfaction Scores intelligently analyze large amounts of data to improve agent performance and to maximize customer satisfaction. Virtual agent and dropped call conversation summaries reduce knowledge gaps and improve resolution times when handoffs are made.
Thanks to our platform approach, the AI Assistant is available across our broader Webex portfolio including the Webex Suite. Today, I am excited to share how we continue to elevate the experience with the AI Assistant for Webex Calling. With calling being one of the most vital ways to connect, we are thrilled to have AI built into this important workload for our 16 million plus calling users across 180+ markets globally. The AI Assistant leverages our audio intelligence innovations and powerful generative AI models to generate summaries, notes, and action items in real time during a call so users will never forget an important detail of a conversation. Call summaries and notes can also be shared when transferring a call, so recipients can quickly be caught up on the conversation.
Critical to amazing employee experiences is empowering everyone to feel like they are seen and heard. Now, the AI Assistant for Webex can translate AI summaries in over 120 languages to ensure language is no longer a barrier for communication and understanding. And for meetings where multiple people are gathered in the same room, the AI Assistant can recognize and label individual speakers in the transcript.
We will also soon be expanding the AI Assistant to give users the ability to:
- Automate workflows through integrations with enterprise apps including Salesforce, ServiceNow, Zendesk, and more.
- Integrate with Glean, enabling mutual customers to enhance discussions and speed up decision-making with its knowledge graph and connectors including Outlook, Salesforce, and ServiceNow.
- Choose the Large Language Model (LLM) that best fits their needs with Amazon Bedrock.
- Share summaries and recaps across third-party platforms including Microsoft Outlook, Teams, and Slack.
Next-level audience engagement
Collaboration tools need to be flexible to fit the rhythm of modern work. Vidcast, our video messaging tool, enables users to communicate in a more personal and engaging way. And thanks to the power of AI, we are enriching the viewing experience with automatic chapters and highlights and enhancing your content with AI-powered noise removal and immersive backgrounds. Soon, we will be taking it a step further with AI-generated Vidcast. Simply upload a PDF or PPT file and Vidcast will generate a talk track and even create a video with voice over.
Soon, we will also use AI to enhance audience participation by generating custom-made polls based on your presentation content. Slido’s new AI feature will seamlessly analyze your Microsoft PowerPoint or Google Slides and suggest polls tailored to your content with just one click, making it easier than ever to boost participant engagement.
True-to-life experiences with Cisco Devices
Distance Zero is our vision for eliminating the sense of distance between people, giving every interaction an in-person feel. We’re delivering these experiences through our Cisco devices and Webex software using purpose-built AI for audio and video. Now we’re introducing an experience that lets our customers engage in a spatial video environment. Cisco Spatial Meetings enables Apple Vision Pro users to interact with others like they’re right there with them. Cisco uniquely delivers this, thanks to our AI-powered devices with NVIDIA chipsets and dual-lens cameras that can capture every nuance in a three-dimensional (3D) environment. It’s like turning any room with a Cisco Room Bar Pro into a 3D studio.
Today, we are also excited to introduce our latest intelligent device designed for meeting spaces, the Cisco Ceiling Mic Pro. This is the market’s first AI-powered ceiling microphone with adaptive beamforming – it recognizes the location of participants in the room, and automatically configures itself to capture the best audio. Of course, it is also incredibly easy to manage thanks to Webex Control Hub.
Building smarter workspaces with Cisco
The future office is no longer confined to a single building; it is a network of physical and digital spaces designed to enhance every aspect of work. The challenge is to integrate these spaces in a way that delivers an excellent end-user experience and allows IT to easily monitor and manage the environment. We are making it easier than ever for organizations to get started building smarter workplaces with Workspace Designer. This free self-service tool provides recommendations for furniture, platform, and product choices and creates custom blueprints tailored to workspace needs.
Once IT has things up and running, Webex Control Hub streamlines the design, deployment, and management of smart workspaces all in one place. And now, with the new AI powered Smart Diagnostics feature, IT gets a clear and comprehensive device diagnosis, with suggested actions for resolution, in an instant.
Experience Amplified: Shaping the Future
We have been at the forefront of innovation in employee and customer experiences, pioneering the use of AI to enhance these interactions like never before. We are creating new possibilities where AI not only boosts productivity but also enables deeper human connections.
Imagine a world where remote meetings feel as intimate and impactful as face-to-face conversations. Envision customer interactions that are not just automated but deeply personalized, making customers feel truly understood and appreciated. Picture a workplace where AI manages routine tasks, freeing up time for meaningful collaboration and creative problem-solving.
We are delivering on this vision through the power of AI across the Webex Suite, Collaboration Devices, and Customer Experience solutions. This is what Experience Amplified means to us. I invite you to join us on this journey.
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