Lifesize Files for Bankruptcy with Enghouse Systems to Acquire Assets
Lifesize has filed for voluntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy, with Enghouse lined up to acquire many of its brands.
As part of the deal, Enghouse will acquire Lifesize, Kaptivo, ProScheduler, Serenova, and Telstrat.
Marc Bilbao of FTI Consulting, Co-Chief Restructuring Officer of Lifesize, named the pandemic’s impact on the market as a critical factor behind Lifesize’s predicament:
Lifesize was founded on the vision of providing life-like visual communication solutions to allow businesses to thrive in a digital world. However, due to the global pandemic, the need for in-office video conference solutions evaporated essentially overnight. This ultimately put a pause on Lifesize’s core business model and a strain on its financial structure.”
To avert short-term disruption for its customers, Lifesize is finalising $5 million in financing from its existing lender to ensure liquidity during the process. It has also filed “First Day” motions with its bankruptcy.
The additional financing will enable Lifesize to maintain its day-to-day operations and pay its employees.
Zoom Invests in Anthropic to Progress AI Solutions
Zoom has partnered with and invested in AI safety and research business Anthropic to build advanced and dependable AI systems.
The collaboration will bolster Zoom’s federated approach to AI by integrating Anthropic’s AI assistant, Claude, with Zoom’s collaborative platform. Zoom Contact Centre will be the first solution to be integrated with Claude to help agent productivity and improve customer support.
Smita Hashim, Chief Product Officer for Zoom, said that Anthropic’s Constitutional AI would provide responsible integrations for Zoom’s next-generation innovations, beginning with Zoom Contact Centre. “With Claude guiding agents toward trustworthy resolutions and powering self-service for end-users, companies will be able to take customer relationships to another level,” Hashim added.
As well as its partnership with Anthropic, Zoom launched new generative AI features earlier this year to help users compose emails and chat messages. The new solution, built into Zoom IQ, is powered through a partnership with ChatGPT creator OpenAI and summarises chat threads and generates meeting agendas.
The combination of Zoom’s Anthropic and OpenAI partnerships empowers Zoom to update Zoom IQ with new features intending to streamline workflows and equip users with relevant information.
Cisco Collaborates with Voiceitt on Accessible Voice AI
Voiceitt has collaborated with Webex by Cisco to create an accessible voice AI to allow people with speech impairments to speak and be understood during video meetings.
Voicett describes the solution as a “leading speech recognition technology for non-standard speech”. The vendor is leveraging AI on Webex to introduce innovative captioning and transcription capabilities.
Sara Smolley, Voiceitt Co-Founder and Vice President, Strategic Partnerships, commented:
Cisco’s commitment to inclusive collaboration is aligned with Voiceitt’s mission to make voice AI accessible to people with non-standard speech. The integration with Webex is game-changing because it creates more independence for users with disabilities while increasing the potential for more collaborative, inclusive work environments.”
The communications enablement tool can be applied to face-to-face conversations, email and text dictation, and meeting transcription. The solution is adaptive and learns the patterns of an individual’s speech from enrolment data. Its machine learning algorithms utilise this information and have evolved from its database of non-standard speech recordings.
The new feature is now available on the Webex App Hub for use in Webex Meetings, and a no-cost Voiceitt beta program is available for those with non-standard speech.
SAP and Microsoft Aim to Tackle Talent Gap with Generative AI
SAP and Microsoft are collaborating on a generative AI solution to help customers address the talent gap.
The solutions intend to generate new methodologies to improve how businesses attract, retain and coach their employees. SAP and Microsoft will leverage SAP SuccessFactors solutions with Microsoft 365 Copilot and Copilot in Viva Learning.
SAP and Microsoft will also integrate Microsoft’s Azure OpenAI Service to utilise powerful language models that assess and create natural language.
“We have an incredible opportunity to deliver next-generation AI that will unlock productivity growth for every individual, organisation and industry, including the human resources function, said Satya Nadella, Chairman and CEO at Microsoft. “We’re building on our long-standing cloud partnership with SAP and bringing together the power of Microsoft 365 Copilot with SAP SuccessFactors solutions to transform how organisations attract and develop their most important resource – their people.”
For recruitment, SAP will use the Azure OpenAI Service API as well as data from SAP SuccessFactors solutions to produce compelling and targeted job descriptions. Integrating the SAP SuccessFactors Recruiting solution and Microsoft 365 empowers leaders to craft job descriptions using Copilot in Word. This will include additional content and checks to detect bias. The final job descriptions will be published in SAP SuccessFactors to conclude the workflow.
For learning, employees can utilise Copilot in Viva Learning to perform natural language queries to produce personalised learning recommendations based on data and learning courses in SAP SuccessFactors solutions that can fulfil the employee’s career and development goals.
