Cisco Confirms Staff Layoffs as Collaboration Sales Grow Again
Cisco confirmed that five percent of its workforce would be laid off in its most recent earnings call while revealing that collaboration sales grew for the second consecutive quarter.
In Cisco’s earnings call for Q2 FY2024, the vendor announced that collaboration sales had grown three percent — the same as in Q1. Chairman and CEO Chuck Robbins and CFO Scott Herren credited the growth to new collaboration software releases, collaboration devices, and calling, but meeting revenues declined, which “partially” undermined collaboration’s growth.
Scott Herren, CFO at Cisco, commented:
Collaboration was up 3 percent, driven by growth in collaboration devices and calling, partially offset by a decline in meetings(…)
However, despite the growth in collaboration, security (three percent) and observability (16 percent) sales, there was less positive news across the earnings call.
As reported earlier this week, Cisco formally announced it was cutting five percent of its workforce. “We are realigning our investments and expenses to reflect the current environment to help maximize long-term value for our shareholders,” said Herren. “As part of our announced restructuring plan, we expect to impact approximately five percent of our global workforce with estimated pre-tax charges of approximately $800 million.”
Additionally, networking revenues, a key business arm for Cisco, declined 12 percent, contributing to a decline in total revenues (six percent) to $12.8 billion. This saw Cisco lower its full-year outlook for FY 2024 for the second successive quarter from $53.8 billion-$55.0 billion in Q1 to $51.5 billion-$52.5 billion.
Slack AI is Now Generally Available To Boost Productivity
Salesforce has announced the general availability of Slack AI, a generative AI experience to boost worker productivity.
Slack AI, first revealed in September, is native to Slack’s collaboration platform, meaning users can leverage the wealth of collective company knowledge shared within Slack through guided experiences powered by AI. These experiences feature AI-powered search functionalities, channel recaps, thread summaries, and an upcoming “digests” feature that Salesforce is teasing.
These capabilities intend to empower users to rapidly discover answers, distil knowledge, and cultivate ideas more efficiently.
“For the past decade, Slack has revolutionized the way we work, bringing people, apps and systems together in one place,” Denise Dresser, Slack CEO, said. “With Slack AI, we’re excited to take this transformation to the next level. These new AI capabilities empower our customers to access the collective knowledge within Slack so they can work smarter, move faster, and spend their time on things that spark real innovation and growth.”
Slack AI is now available as a paid add-on for Slack Enterprise plans and in US and UK English.
Microsoft Unveils the New Copilot in Teams Experience
Microsoft has updated the Copilot experience in Teams with an improved UI, more intelligent prompts and a detailed chat history.
While retaining the same general functionality and content access as the previous version of the service, the new benefits include refined prompts tailored to user needs, including personalised details such as a user’s colleagues, scheduled meetings, and relevant files. Other notable features include the ability for users to see their Copilot chat history and access a library of prompts through Microsoft’s Copilot Lab.
Abby Schilbach, Product Marketing Manager at Microsoft, wrote in an accompanying blog post:
It’s better than the current Microsoft 365 Chat in Teams. The new Copilot in Teams is easier to find, to use, and has better functionality for a better experience.”
The upgraded experience for Copilot for Microsoft 365 subscribers rolled out on Monday, February 12.
In other Teams news, the Human Resources app for Teams is now in public preview, designed for annual leave request management. It is seamlessly integrated with Dynamics 365 Human Resources on Finance and Operations environments, offering organisations a streamlined solution for employees to request, edit, and cancel time off and leave of absence requests with ease.
Lastly, Microsoft is introducing a new feature that will allow Teams chat in the new Outlook for Windows app. In meetings set up from either Outlook or Teams, with Teams designated as the meeting platform, participants can engage in real-time Teams chat directly within Outlook.
- Read more about the new Copilot in Teams experience
- Read more about the new HR app in Teams
- Read more about Teams Chat being enabled in Outlook
ChatGPT Will Soon Remember Who You Are
ChatGPT will soon remember who you are as OpenAI tests a new “Memory” capability for its generative AI service.
The new functionality will allow ChatGPT to recall user prompts and preferences across all previous chats to save time and effort for future conversations.
“We’re testing memory with ChatGPT,” OpenAI’s accompanying blog wrote. “Remembering things you discuss across all chats saves you from having to repeat information and makes future conversations more helpful.”
OpenAI also stresses user control — that they can dictate what precisely ChatGPT remembers and what it forgets through operating its settings. “You’re in control of ChatGPT’s memory,” the blog wrote. “You can explicitly tell it to remember something, ask it what it remembers, and tell it to forget conversationally or through settings. You can also turn it off entirely.”
Memory rolls out for a “small portion” of ChatGPT Free and paying Plus subscribers this week, OpenAI says, as a trial period. The company plans to share general release plans “soon”.
