Call center intelligence firm Uniphore Technologies Inc. has wasted no time in putting its recent $400 million funding round to work, announcing today that it has acquired a startup called Colabo Inc.

In doing so, it gets its hands on an artificial intelligence-powered knowledge automation tool that can extract and use information from both structured and unstructured data in real time.

Such a capability should be useful for Uniphore, which sells call center technology such as virtual agents and virtual assistants that can either handle customer calls entirely, or assist human operators as they do so.

Uniphore’s products include U-Self Serve, an intelligent virtual assistant that can engage callers in multiple languages, deal with basic inquiries, gauge their intent and sentiment and then hand off callers it can’t deal with to a human agent. U-Assist meanwhile listens to and transcribes telephone interactions, storing them in a searchable database. It also applies natural language processing to determine what callers are saying or asking for to give human agents suggestions on how to respond.

Colabo’s AI knowledge automation tool will enhance Uniphore’s offerings, allowing its agents to extract more knowledge from a company’s records that include structured and unstructured data, so both its virtual assistants and human agents will be better prepared to deal with caller’s requests. The technology will be able to surface the most relevant information they need, Uniphore said.

Uniphore co-founder and Chief Executive Umesh Sachdev (pictured) said consumers expect that companies will have access to the most up-to-date information to solve their problems. “This acquisition brings together unique capabilities to arm enterprises with new tools that provide a quick resolution to consumer queries and empower agents with real-time, actionable information,” he said.

Colabo co-founder and CEO Yoav Dembak said that when he built the company, his vision was to help personalize customer experiences from the moment they first contact a business. “Today, I am proud to say we have achieved that and will be taking our vision even further by integrating into Uniphore’s conversational AI and automation platform, bringing rigor and best-of-breed agility and accuracy to every contact center inquiry,” he said.

Liz Miller of Constellation Research Inc. told SiliconANGLE the acquisition is a great move by Uniphore, which gets to expand its knowledge base and enhance its ability to personalize and contextualize conversations for both agents and virtual assistants.

“Conversations don’t just happen in digital spaces, and so Colabo’s capacity to extract actionable intelligence from structured and unstructured data sets and digital and physical sources removes the limits around where knowledge can come from,” Miller said. “Who knows, maybe even the words “legacy systems” can stop being a dirty word with this newfound capacity to reach across those systems to extract knowledge.”

Miller said Uniphore is looking well set with today’s acquisition adding to its solid partner set, which includes cloud communications firms such as Cisco Systems Inc., Five9 Inc. and Avaya Inc.

“Uniphore’s March announcement about its app partner program clearly telegraphs that it understands the need for closer alignment with other tools across the CX and communications stack,” she said. “The real question is when will Uniphore start making a marketing play and position its platform for use cases in human capital management and employee experience?”

The acquisition will in any case help give Uniphore an edge in what is becoming an incredibly competitive intelligent contact center market. Uniphore’s rivals include Google LLC, which recently revamped its own Contact Center AI platform. There are also Observe.ai, which landed $125 million in funding earlier this month, and Zoom Video Communications Inc., which launched its own contact center solution in February after failing to buy its way into the market with Five9 Inc.

Photo: Uniphore