Cisco is rolling out further AI updates to Webex, with the company announcing general availability of AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center solution.
“AI is the foundation for a modern customer experience and delivers the vision of a customer experience centre,”
Jay Patel, SVP & GM at Webex Customer Experience Solutions, wrote in a press release.
Announced as part of Cisco Live, alongside the Cisco AI Assistant’s general availability, the Webex AI Agent was billed to receive general availability for contact centres in the coming months.
AI-Driven Transformation for Contact Centres
Cisco AI Assistant, the generative AI-powered tool designed to enhance productivity and decision-making, combines advanced AI technologies with Cisco’s data resources to automate workflows, streamline tasks, and improve efficiency.
In a Webex Contact Center context, it is designed to empower agents and supervisors with AI-powered assistance, providing automated guidance, contextual insights, and concise summaries to streamline customer interactions.
“For customer-facing teams, we are deploying AI to augment the agent experience and, when possible, automate manual tasks like conversation summaries, contextual handoffs, and monitoring agent well-being,” said Patel.
Key features include AI agent transfer context summaries, which ensure seamless handoffs between AI agents and human agents, eliminating the need for customers to repeat information.
Dropped call summaries maintain continuity by capturing interaction details even after disconnections, enabling agents to quickly resume conversations.
Perhaps most notably for an AI system, the AI Assistant incorporates an Agent Wellbeing feature.
This feature identifies signs of burnout in real time, enabling proactive interventions such as automatic breaks and schedule adjustments.
For more out-of-the-moment features, the AI Assistant also provides AI-powered analytics, including Topic Analytics for identifying the reasons for incoming calls, and Automatic CSAT Scoring, which evaluates 100% of voice interactions to overcome the limitations of traditional survey methods.
In addition to this availability announcement, Cisco plans to add more advanced capabilities in Q2 2025, such as suggested responses, real-time transcription, wrap-up summaries, and mid-call summaries.
AI Agents for Webex
Announced at Webex One in October 2024, Webex AI Agent and its AI Agent Studio will soon be available in a contact centre scenario.
Cisco says these tools stand to transform contact centres into proactive, personalised, and efficient hubs for customer interaction.
“We want to make sure you have no hold times, and make sure the AI agent you connect to sounds like a human being and responds like one,”
Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and Chief Product Officer at Cisco said at Cisco Live.
Built and customised using AI Agent Studio, a low-code/no-code tool, Webex AI Agents aim to provide 24/7 operation across voice and digital channels, reduce wait times and free up human agents to focus on more complex issues.
The management of AI agents is also possible without relying on third-party solutions. The platform also has enterprise controls for flexibility and choice in identifying the appropriate AI engine based on the specific use case, with appropriate guardrails to ensure security.
Currently integrated with Webex Contact Center, the Webex AI Agent will be available for integration with third-party contact centres later this year, with language support covering English and other major European languages.
AI’s Effect on Contact Centre Experience
Cisco’s release came after joint research on CX professionals between Metrigy and Webex recently discovered there is a growing divide in customer satisfaction.
Nearly all respondents with the highest levels of customer satisfaction incorporate AI into their CX strategies.
This highlights a strong correlation between AI adoption and customer satisfaction, underscoring the need for CCaaS to embrace AI to stay competitive and meet evolving customer expectations.
Tacked on to these two Webex announcements, Cisco revealed the announcement of Release 15.
This upcoming release brings additional digital capabilities, scalability improvements, and security and accessibility enhancements to Unified Contact Center Enterprise (UCCE) and Webex Contact Center Enterprise.
As an added carrot on a stick, Release 15 will offer customers the opportunity to participate in early trials for the Webex AI Agent and AI Assistant.
