The modern workflow is growing increasingly complex.
We’re not just sitting together with our co-workers in the same office anymore.
We’re reaching out to people across destinations, time zones, applications and more. The more that companies can unify their increasingly dispersed teams, the more likely they are to improve the chances that work gets done.
Cognitive collaboration is about going beyond the basic team experiences to link people insights, relationship intelligence, business processes, artificial intelligence and so much more. This idea, initially introduced by Cisco, transforms the way that we think about company culture.
What is Cognitive Collaboration?
Cognitive Collaboration is the practice of applying specific behavioural guidelines to an environment, creating an atmosphere that promotes better collaboration by giving people the support and guidance they need. It’s about ensuring that the workers that need more silence to focus can block out distraction with noise-cancelling headphones and ensuring that those who need to access information quickly can use chatbots and AI.
Cognitive collaboration focuses on finding the strengths of your day-to-day workers and looking for ways to harness and improve them while eliminating roadblocks on the path to success.
The concept of cognitive collaboration was originally introduced by Cisco, a company dedicated to building their own collaboration platform with a focus on human needs and productivity. Cisco wanted to create a space where people could feel connected, supported and engaged, even in an environment where silos are increasingly common.
For instance, in a meeting room, the little issues that happen when people are trying to communicate over video or set up a conference can seriously disrupt business performance. To deliver amazing collaboration, conversations and interactions need to be completely seamless.
Not only does cognitive collaboration lead to better experiences for employees, but it also improves the level of customer care that a business can give too. When co-workers can collaborate more organically, they can also make faster, more intelligent decisions that allow them to serve customers better too.
Cognitive Collaboration Trends
Cognitive collaboration is about bringing intelligence and context into all collaborative experience, to boost the performance of team settings. This may mean adding disruptive technology like artificial intelligence and virtual assistants to the meeting room, to enhance interactions between customers and colleagues, and build better performing teams across the globe.
Rather than simply creating “dumb” collaborative terminals that simply do what they’re told, pioneers of cognitive collaboration are investing in intelligent additions to the teamwork environment. Here are some of the trends leading the way.
1. The Rise of Virtual Assistants
Cognitive collaboration focuses on bridging the gap between intelligent workstreams and intelligent workspaces. The result is a more immersive experience for employees and better outcomes for customers. In the future, we can expect to see the majority of the best collaborative tools being combined with intelligent virtual assistants that can work alongside human beings, anticipate their needs, and aid with a host of projects.
In the world of customer experience, AI will ensure that every agent can deliver the tailored level of support that their client is looking for. These assistants will deliver context and information about the customer in every channel, while also offering predictive views on how people interact so that companies can respond accordingly.
2. The Growth of RPA
Much of the technology involved with cognitive collaboration comes from artificial intelligence and Robotic Process Automation. The best collaborative workspaces won’t just make it easier for individuals to do more when they’re in the office; they’ll also remove repetitive and unnecessary tasks from their schedule. RPA solutions can tackle information overload in the workplace and take care of the grunt work, which allows employees to focus on more creative and human problems.
The key to success with RPA solutions going forward is making sure that companies know where to draw the line between assigning opportunities to robotic systems and handing the reigns over to human agents.
3. More Immersive Meetings
Alright, artificial intelligence and disruptive technologies are transforming the collaborative environment as we know it. Today’s automated assistants can collect information during a voice call, transcribe conversations, and even translate voice in real-time. The right bots can also help with setting up a conference space so that it’s easier for teams to jumps straight into work mode.
However, there are still other opportunities out there for people who are willing to think outside of the box. Currently, the AR market is expected to reach a value of $133.78 billion by 2021, which offers an incredible opportunity for collaborative tools that can provide mixed-reality experiences.
Cognitive Collaboration Statistics
As people in the everyday workspace continue to struggle with more complicated workflows and rising demands from customers, cognitive collaboration could simplify the path to success. By giving people the support they need to perform more rapidly, accurately and creatively in a modern environment, these tools are changing company culture as we know it.
- 53% of companies believe that smart meeting rooms have the power to improve business processes
- Businesses expect a 52% increase in contact centre interaction complexity in the next 2 years – an issue that could be supported by cognitive collaboration.
- 26% of people believe that AI is the next big thing for the market, and another 29% believe that customer personalisation strategies will be crucial for the future.
- 47% of digitally mature organisations already have a plan in place for implementing more AI into the workflow.
- 72% of business leaders believe that AI will deliver a critical advantage to their company going forward.
- 61% of organisations think that AI can help them to identify opportunities that they would otherwise miss.
- The impact of AI tech on business will increase labour productivity by 40% according to Accenture
Cognitive Collaboration Hashtags Used on Social Media
- #CognitiveCollaboration
- #CustomerService
- #CustomerExperience
- #Teamwork
- #Communication
- #ArtificialIntelligence
- #Chatbot
