The definition of “collaboration” is changing, driven by the rise of cloud computing, remote working, and digital transformation. Teams don’t just work together in boardrooms anymore; they connect seamlessly through file-sharing devices, video conferencing, and instant messaging.
In an environment where your business team is dispersed in locations all around the world, collaboration needs to be more intelligent than ever. 95% of workers are convinced that artificial intelligence can transform their workplace tasks. Cisco’s cognitive collaboration strategy serves that need, providing a way to integrate people insights, relationship intelligence, artificial intelligence, and business processes for more proactive customer journeys.
Now that 53% of companies believe that smart meeting rooms will improve business processes, and the demand for AI elsewhere is growing too, cognitive collaboration could be the future of how we meet. Here’s what you need to know about Cisco’s Cognitive Collaboration offering.
What is Cognitive Collaboration?
The Cognitive Collaboration portfolio from Cisco is a combination of AI, big data, and machine learning, intended to improve the way that people connect. With contextual insights into business communications, users can overcome common friction points in the modern workplace, with advanced capabilities like facial recognition, digital assistants, in-meeting profiles, and audio transcripts.
For instance, features of Cognitive Collaboration include:
- Proactive Join: Through Webex Assistant, Cisco can ask users proactively if they would like to join a meeting when they walk into a meeting room, using proximity technology
- First Match: The First Match solution uses conversational AI to identify exactly who a user wants to connect within their meeting. For instance, the system can search through your previous contact history when you say, “Call Mike” to figure out which “Mike” you want to reach
- People Insights: Based on technology from the Accompany Acquisition, People Insights combines internal data with web-based information to design rich profiles of meeting participants, perfect for breaking the ice during meetings
Cisco even includes advanced facial recognition solutions within Webex as part of their new Cognitive Collaboration offering. With a Webex device, you’ll be able to instantly identify all the people in the room.
What’s So Smart about Cognitive Collaboration?
The Cognitive Collaboration environment combines enterprise content, data insights and analytics, artificial intelligence and machine relevance to bring more context to contact centre environments, meetings, team collaboration, and any other communication system you can think of.
Cisco believes that this offering could be a game-changer to countless use cases. For instance, in critical incident response, the Webex platform linked with an IoT device could ensure that businesses can instantly respond to emergency issues like water leaks, pipe bursts, or damaged wiring. In a world where companies are consistently investing in automation and sensors, cognitive collaboration means that humans can stay connected to the right information at the right time.
Cognitive Collaboration from Cisco:
- Empowers intelligent teamwork by fostering deeper relationships between users through contextual insights and people profiles
- Creates more meaningful and proactive customer interactions based on analytical insights and contextual information
- Builds higher-performance teams in intelligent workspaces that can evolve and adapt with agility based on available resources
- Reduces meeting technology friction points for faster and more effective conferences, even with remote workers
- Improves the way that people work with the information that they need to remove points of friction in the collaboration experience
Overcoming the Frictions with Modern Meetings
One of the most compelling use cases for Cognitive Collaboration is in the evolving meeting space. Studies by Cisco have found that 85% of businesses face frustrating and time-consuming issues when they attempt to launch a conference. Often, these problems are perpetuated by audio issues, difficulty connecting, and sophisticated technology.
Today’s businesses are unsatisfied with the meeting environments that are currently available to them. Video and audio conferencing solutions are still not delivering the simplicity that people need, but cognitive collaboration can change all that. Cisco’s research found that 9 out of 10 people would be willing to adopt these tools as quickly as possible, and 66% would switch vendors to access a more intelligent online meeting solution. From knowing who’s who in a room thanks to facial recognition technology to accessing relationship intelligence like detailed biographies during a conversation, cognitive collaboration makes meetings more engaging. This significantly reduces the time wasted on unproductive conferences each day.
It’s not just deeper relationships between employees that Cognitive Collaboration can support either. This solution could also lead to stronger relationships with customers too. When employees can collaborate more freely and frictionlessly, they can work together on solving customer problems. Combine that with access to rich consumer information, and agents have everything they need to deliver more personalised and proactive customer interactions. Mike Kozlowski is VP, Product Management Enterprise Collaboration says:
Cisco is at the technology vanguard using predictive analytics and post-meeting tools, to enable collaboration of the knowledge worker. At Intrado we have a long history of advancing customer’s collaboration journey partnering with Cisco to create modern experiences through service and technology deployments or change management practices to drive usage and adoption
How to Embrace Cognitive Collaboration
So, how do you get started with Cognitive Collaboration?
To begin with, it’s essential to understand what cognitive collaboration means. This term isn’t just about machine learning and natural language processing. With cognitive collaboration, you’re embracing a portfolio of tools, experiences, and solutions intended to help people work better together across a range of environments.
With that in mind:
- Choose the right vendor: Cognitive collaboration isn’t just a product or suite; it’s a continually evolving selection of integrated collaboration experiences. Cisco’s implementation of cognitive collaboration experiences is state-of-the-art and currently leading the marketplace. Cisco has the broadest collaboration portfolio on the market, complete with meeting hardware, services, software, integrations, contact centre solutions, and more
- Put meetings first: Remember that team collaboration and meetings are at the heart of cognitive collaboration today. These interactions began in the Cisco portfolio with Cisco Webex, where companies can access everything they need for stronger conferences and teamwork. With people insights and other advanced upgrades, your company will be able to strengthen the way that your people connect. The better your team can communicate, the more you’ll benefit from enhanced engagement, productivity, and even greater customer experiences
- Find the right Cisco partner: Contact with a Cisco partner that can help you make the most out of your full UC strategy with cognitive collaboration, like West. Ask your partner for a demonstration to see the full potential of the solution, and make sure that they can guide you through the potential use cases for your team and contact centres, so you can visualise the benefits
The future of work is changing. To change with it, you need a cognitive approach that allows for more intelligent, contextual conversations. It could be time for everyone to embrace the world of cognitive collaboration.
This article is sponsored by Intrado – download their latest eBook here for more information on Cisco Cognitive Collaboration
