New AI-powered Experiences & Enhanced Collaboration with Webex Suite
Powering successful Hybrid Work is at the heart of Webex’s approach to building solutions that empower teams to do their best work, regardless of their physical location. In 2021, we introduced the Webex Suite – bringing together the Webex portfolio into one comprehensive set of communication and collaboration tools designed to meet the needs of modern workplaces.
The Webex Suite includes a range of solutions, such as meetings, messaging, calling, webinars, events, whiteboarding, and more – plus costs up to 40% less than purchasing solutions separately.
In the past year, Suite usage has doubled, with more than 70% of customers are using at least 2 Webex products within the Suite. With Webex Suite, teams can work together seamlessly and efficiently, regardless of their location or time zone – with immense ROI for the organization.
I am excited to share the latest news spanning collaboration solutions in the Webex Suite of products.
TOC:
- AI-Powered Meetings for Inclusive and Creative Collaboration
- Prioritize Your Work, And Yourself
- Meeting Experiences in Cisco Devices
- Up-level Your Next Event
- An Ever-Expanding App Ecosystem
AI-Powered Meetings for Inclusive and Creative Collaboration
Artificial Intelligence (AI) has revolutionized the way we work, making it easier, faster, and more efficient. And by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks, it allows us to focus on more complex and creative work. But, improving productivity and giving people more time to tap into the creative side of work are not the only driving forces behind AI advancements.
Responsible and inclusive AI gives everyone a seat at the table with an opportunity to leverage all the powerful tools available to them. Everyone should feel seen and heard – no matter where they are or how they engage with technology. At Webex, our approach to inclusive AI is grounded in diverse data sets, testing, and ongoing feedback loops and regularly audited for fairness and accuracy. Our video AI technology accounts for variations in skin tones, facial feature characteristics, the appearance of different hair types, and other attributes to prevent racial bias and enable the most inclusive and accurate results.
Today I’d like to share the vision of AI-powered collaboration in Meetings.
Super Resolution ensures clear, crisp high-definition video no matter what. Even with low bandwidth, a video that appears fuzzy, has low resolution or is choppy can be improved
Portrait effect automatically adds more depth and sharpness to an attendee’s appearance during meetings for a more focused viewing experience. By isolating the person, analyzing features, and assessing the background – Webex can draw individuals into the foreground of videos, adding depth and sharpness and highlighting features without compromising a person’s diversity.
Smart Re-lighting provides a way to decrease or enhance the amount of light in your video. For example, Webex video intelligence will detect low light, and predict the optimal lighting needed to dramatically enhance the video.
Gesture detection allows people to give feedback with non-verbal cues. New gestures will include hands raised for celebration, pressed together for thanks and a heart for affection.
And if I want a change of scenery in a meeting? New AI-powered 3D effects will put me in the center of immersive video scenes. 3D video effects for meetings come in a range of options, confetti, fireflies, and universe effects are just a few. And together, 3D effects can be used with gesture detection – clapping during a meeting will prompt cascading confetti around you!
BRB – it’s not just for texting anymore. We have all had to briefly step away from a video meeting to grab a coffee or answer the door. Instead of interrupting the meeting to let people know, you will soon be able to take advantage of the Be Right Back feature. When you begin to move away from your computer, the meeting will detect that you are not in the frame and automatically blur your screen and mute your audio. And when you return with your fresh cup of coffee – so do your video and audio.
Have you ever multi-tasked during a meeting and missed something important? With AI-powered meeting summaries, task lists, and chapters – you can catch up on the content quickly, in your own time, following the meeting. Meeting summaries automatically generate concise recaps highlighting decisions and action items to save time and help you stay organized. With meeting recordings split into chapters automatically based on key topics, you can quickly find what you need and easily jump to the most relevant parts of your meetings. You can also assign action items for follow-up tasks in the Meeting Summary to keep everyone on the same page.
Prioritize Your Work, And Yourself
The Webex App gives people a single place to manage meetings, chat and daily collaboration. This month we are introducing new options to help you better prioritize work, while also creating more time for yourself.
More hybrid teams now rely on asynchronous collaboration to get work done. As a result, people are getting notified of too many messages. Notification overload can distract people, taking time away from meaningful work and lowering productivity.
Webex app can help people get more focus time and keep work flowing by picking custom options to get notified of what matters the most. Through Granular Notification Control, users can select between all messages, direct messages, space messages, and mentions or turn off all messaging notifications in one click.
Additionally, as work continues to happen 24 hours a day, people feel overwhelmed by notifications outside work hours. Quiet Hours on Webex App lets them set quiet hours for non-work hours, helping them avoid burnout and set boundaries for better work-life balance. Users can create a schedule to mute notifications during non-work hours or select from a “Weekday” or “Custom” schedule.
While asynchronous collaboration allows teams to work as their schedule permits, time spent navigating the exchange of knowledge and requests via messages can make it challenging to get into a state of deep work, tackle priorities, and make real progress.
Space Sections in the Webex App can help people prioritize projects and communications by letting them organize their Spaces in multiple ways—add Spaces or Direct messages to your created sections or drag and drop them between Sections.
Personalized Recommendations in the Webex App will help you prioritize messages and find new groups to collaborate with to improve focus and engagement. Message Recommendations help prioritize Webex App 1:1 chat and space messages based on interactions with those you engage with most and individuals on your direct team. Webex Spaces Recommendations suggest relevant Webex spaces to join based on similar people and engagements.
Meeting Experiences in Cisco Devices
Today, many organizations find themselves paying for multiple collaboration solutions from different vendors. However, with Webex meetings included with Cisco devices, customers no longer need to pay for hardware and software separately – no additional license required!
In a shared meeting space, any Cisco device on RoomOS, including Board Pros, Desk Minis, and more, will automatically come with Webex Meetings. Simply touch the Webex icon on the device screen, then “start a Webex meeting”, invite attendees directly, or scan a QR code to share out the meeting details from your phone.
Read more about the latest Cisco Device news
Up-level Your Next Event
The Webex Suite includes solutions for all types of communications. From team meetings to customer webinars, to hybrid conferences – it’s all available in the Webex Suite. Webex Events (formerly Socio) gives event planners all the tools they need to host virtual, in-person and hybrid events. We are excited to share some of the latest enhancements you can take advantage of today!
Enhanced Production for Virtual and Hybrid Events
Webex Events (formerly Socio) is introducing a new, native Production Studio that will up-level the production of your event keynotes and sessions. With Webex Events Production Studio, you can create professional live streams that are fully branded and tailored to your audience, without the need for downloads or outside software.
Attendee Lobby & Embeddable Website Content
Simplify updates to your event website with new content widgets in Webex Events. Empower your event team to make updates to website content like agendas, speakers, and more by updating information in the event platform — no code update required!
Just like attendees are greeted when walking into an in-person event venue, the new event Lobby feature gives virtual and in-person attendees a space to engage with the event right from the start. In addition to welcoming attendees, the Lobby showcases the events’ most important information, such as agendas, speakers, and sponsors. It’s a perfect way to keep the most important event information front and center for attendees.
An Ever-Expanding App Ecosystem
New Apps for All Your Workflows
In the last 3 months, we have been busy working with partners to add more than 35 new apps to the Webex Apphub. These apps cover a broad spectrum of needs, including Meetings, Calling, Contact Center integrations, Bots, Embedded Apps, as well as AI and compliance integrations. Here are just a sample few that would simplify your workflows, promote inclusivity and take care of your compliance needs:
Mindtickle – With automated reminders from the Webex bot for Mindtickle, your sales team can stay up to date with their training and learning courses.
Raddle – Create more inclusive and equitable meetings with real-time information that helps identify which individuals are doing most of the talking, and which attendees that haven’t been heard from.
CallCabinet: Check out this essential integration for compliance call recording and analytics that’s available for Webex Calling multi-tenant and Dedicated Instance and Webex Contact Center.
With so many new integrations – I can’t list them all! Visit the Webex Apphub to see more.
We are also announcing new enhancements to Embedded Apps. First, Admins are now able to determine which apps their users see first under the “Suggestions for You” label. Giving them a way to highlight preferred apps for their organization. Admins can also create user groups to enable line of business apps for specific users. Second, users can easily access their most used apps, as well as discover new ones. Just “favorite” the apps you use most to keep them front and center in the App panel.
Webex offers immense flexibility by providing various integration types to meet your unique needs. Check out our Webex App Hub page, to explore hundreds of Webex integrations. If you don’t find the app you need, you can also build your own private integration for your organization. Have your developers check out https://developer.webex.com for more information.
We are adding more value to the Webex Suite every day. Infusing AI into the applications we rely on, enabling customization for more personalized experiences at work, and providing the richest set of collaboration solutions for Hybrid Work.
More from Webex at Enterprise Connect 2023:
- Introducing Cinematic Meetings powered by RoomOS
- Improve Incident Response with a Collaboration Platform You Can Trust
- Webex Connect | Latest Channel Updates and AI Innovations
- Delivering purposeful calling experiences to over 10 million users worldwide
- The Next Normal: Webex AI Capabilities for Hybrid Work
About The Author
