Cisco Systems Inc. is enhancing its Webex contact center and videoconferencing platform with expanded artificial intelligence capabilities that are designed to boost productivity for workers, no matter where they’re working.

The latest AI features in Webex include the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex, which uses generative AI technology to support chatbots and summarization features. In addition, the company is launching Cisco AI Assistant for Customer Experience, with a new feature in beta test that’s meant to identify when contact center agents are feeling burned out and in need of assistance.

The most interesting capabilities delivered by Cisco AI Assistant for Webex are the features centered on contact centers. Although Webex is perhaps best known as a collaboration, video calling and messaging platform, it also provides a specific product for contact centers, called Webex Contact Center.

The new features in Webex Contact Center include tools for topic analysis, which provides insights into the reasons why customers are reaching out, and what topics are trending. In addition, it will provide suggested responses for agents, where the AI recommends what they should say next. There are also call wrap-up and summarization features that can help with extracting insights when calls are concluded.

Going further, Webex Contact Center can also use AI to predict when contact center agents are getting burned out, affecting the quality of their interactions with customers, the company explained. In a blog post, Javed Khan, senior vice president and general manager of Cisco Collaboration, said managers can quickly identify when an agent is getting tired and respond by taking the agent out of the call queues and providing a break for a while.

Today’s updates come at a time when Cisco is facing some stiff competition in the collaboration and contact center tools markets, with rival platforms such as Microsoft teams, Google Meet and Zoom all embracing AI features. Capabilities such as meeting summaries are now pretty much standard for collaboration tools, but Cisco believes its contact center updates will differentiate its platform.

With today’s updates, the company said, it’s using AI to make a difference in the customer service market, as opposed to existing AI applications, which are mostly beneficial to knowledge workers and others.

But that doesn’t mean Cisco is ignoring its collaboration tools, which are being enhanced with real-time translation of messages in chat spaces and messaging channels. Before today’s update, Webex did support translation, but only for video meetings. Now it’s being rolled out more widely across Webex, and it supports an expansive range of more than 100 languages, the company said.

New hardware

Cisco also unveiled a couple of new hardware devices for collaboration. They include the new Cisco Board Pro G2, which is described as a “touch collaboration device” for video conferences, and the Cisco Desk Phone 9800, which integrates Webex’s collaborative tools into a network-optimized device.

According to the company, the new hardware will support the growing back-to-office trend within enterprises. It cited a recent global survey of more than 14,000 employees at more than 3,000 companies in 19 countries, which found that 80% of employers are now insisting their employees return to the office either part-time or full-time.

The new hardware is designed to meet this trend, Cisco said, enabling “hot swap” desks, where employees just use a shared desk as and when it’s needed, as opposed to having their own dedicated desk. The Cisco Desk Phone 9800 is perfect for such scenarios, as it allows users to quickly log in and out of the phone, so they can access their own private messages and so on.

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