It has been another Cisco Live this week, with several pieces of eye-catching news across its networking, security, and, most pertinently, its Webex and collaboration arms. We dive into the most compelling announcements below.
What’s Happened With Webex?
Cisco announced new AI Assistant for Webex features, including “Ask AI Assistant during meeting recordings”, in which users can ask the AI Assistant about topics covered during a recorded Webex Meeting. The AI Assistant Custom Dictionary enables organisations to introduce common terms and acronyms into AI Assistant training data. Both features will move to Beta in July.
Webex’s new video intelligence feature enhances users’ meeting experience by ensuring that it automatically mutes their microphone and disables their camera for privacy when they step away from an ongoing meeting. Upon return, the AI Assistant provides a summary of key highlights users have missed, keeping them informed and engaged without interruption. This will be available in June.
Cisco is also launching an all-new Desk Reservation with Cisco Spaces to simplify finding and booking desk spaces and Cisco Collaboration Devices.
Chuck Robbins, Chair and CEO of Cisco, said this week:
We’re thrilled to share incredible innovation and new AI-powered capabilities for our customers this week at Cisco Live. Cisco is uniquely positioned to revolutionize the way infrastructure and data connect and protect organizations of all sizes, and we are confident we are the right strategic partner for our customers in this era of AI.”
Additionally, Webex Contact Center has received several new capabilities, including AI-powered native voice virtual agents and customers being able to integrate their own third-party virtual agents (moving to Beta in July).
Another is an AI-powered agent wellness feature that identifies when a contact centre agent is near burnout. It automatically facilitates actions such as affording the agent a rest, enabling them to shift to a lower-intensity digital channel, and dynamically adjusting schedules. This becomes generally available in July.
There have always been updates on Cisco AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center, such as topic analytics (moving to Beta). Additionally, AI-powered automatic CSAT can now predict customer CSAT based on analysis of customer survey responses, including characteristics of interactions such as sentiment and hold times (generally available in July).
Best of the Rest In Cisco News
There was some major Cisco news outside Webex, too.
Cisco Investments, Cisco’s global corporate venture investment arm, launched a $1 billion AI investment fund this week. The fund intends to support the startup ecosystem and enhance the development of secure and reliable AI solutions.
As part of this new AI fund, strategic investments are being made in companies such as Cohere, Mistral AI, and Scale AI to further customers’ AI capabilities and align with Cisco’s AI innovation strategy. Cisco has allocated nearly $200 million of the $1 billion investment fund to date. Cisco affirms this move underscores its commitment to fostering innovation and growth within the AI sector.
Control Hub’s upcoming features, launching in Beta in Autumn 2024, streamline collaboration space management and enhance IT support. The Workspace Ranking tool uses AI to guide IT admins on urgent workspace issues, informed by usage, occupancy, and environmental data. Remote Access allows IT admins to manage Cisco and Microsoft Teams Rooms devices remotely via Control Hub, resolving issues and making configurations quickly, ensuring efficient operations and a superior user experience.
Cisco’s newly announced AI partner specialisation training will equip partners with the skills to fine-tune AI workloads on Cisco technology. The condensed training will delve into AI essentials, Cisco’s AI strategy, and practical use cases, equipping partners to deploy AI solutions effectively with Cisco platforms. This initiative is part of Cisco’s commitment to enhancing AI proficiency among its partners.
