"Voice is dead" is a common phrase you may have been hearing in your UC circles for the past few years.
It no doubt makes for a good soundbite. However, recent developments may be moving the dial away from sensationalism to something with a bit more substance.
Yet just as a tide of new technology is seemingly turning against the use of voice, a new wave of innovation may be bringing it back into relevance.
With the global economy shaky and budgets subsequently tightening, many companies looking to invest in their UC solutions may be in this tough dilemma: take some money to invest in voice or invest it into omnichannel comms alongside more promising technologies like AI.
So where is voice as a concept of communication currently in market? What are the concerns, and what could present some opportunities for a future resurgence?
Vocalising Voice's Concern
Prior to the launch of UC giants like Teams and Zoom, the industry was filled with legacy providers.
These providers were largely telcos, and thus, a big part of their offering was voice-based communication.
However, their traditional business model began being disrupted by the advent of Covid and the associated lockdowns.
"The pandemic greatly accelerated the migration of UC to the cloud, and this had a downward effect on legacy UC vendors,"
David Evans, Vice President of Product Management at GoTo, told UC Today.
This switch took away the influence of many voice-centric vendors and moved them on to more chat enabled platforms.
Beyond that, however, consumer communication preferences have changed.
A 2024 survey of 2,000 people from price comparison company Uswitch found a quarter of people aged 18 to 34 never answer the phone.
Respondents say they ignore the ringing, respond via text, or search the number online if they don't recognize it.
This highlights one of the first problems facing voice. Scam calls are rife, and users are becoming increasingly wary of picking up the phone to a unknown number.
Indeed, at the annual Cavell Europe Summit, over 50% of attendees attending a session on voice's future said the main issues hindering it are trust issues.
Equally, the Uswitch survey found that nearly 70% of 18-34s prefer a text to a phone call.
As a result, companies have been focusing more on integrating new omnichannel capabilities that help expand their ability to connect to their customers via their chosen communication platform.
However, despite this growing push for chat-based communication, developments in the UC sphere are showing how voice as a medium could be having a resurgence, and it's all thanks to AI.
AI Receptionists to the Rescue?
This year has begun with the same fervor of AI as the last year.
