AI in Unified Communications: How Automation & Insights Are Transforming UC Stacks

AI is transforming UC for good, turbocharging automation, collaboration, and employee experiences—it is elevating the art of the possible.

But before businesses can unlock AI’s full potential, they must carefully assess their existing UC stack. This guide explores the critical steps to preparing your UC infrastructure for AI, supported by VOSS‘s portfolio of sophisticated digital transformation tools. It covers conducting a thorough stack audit to leveraging automation and insights for an elegant transition to modern, AI-ready platforms.

Where should organisations begin in readying their UC stack for AI?

The first major step in preparing your UC stack for AI is discovery. Organisations need complete visibility into their existing infrastructure—what systems are deployed, where users are located, and how resources are managed. An audit helps identify underutilised licenses, redundant tools, and inefficiencies that could hamstring AI-boosted transformation.

A structured approach is essential. Gartner’s five-stage digital transformation maturity model outlines a valuable benchmark: Stage 1 means digital transformation isn’t on the agenda yet, while Stage 3—where most organisations sit—signals partial adoption. Understanding where you stand in your digital transformation journey is critical before making AI-related investments.

Leveraging an audit and migration tool, such as from VOSS, provides comprehensive visibility into your current UC assets—covering both on-premises and cloud deployments. VOSS not only catalogues these assets but also delivers actionable insights to pinpoint underutilised licenses and inefficiencies. Furthermore, when migrating to platforms such as Microsoft Teams, VOSS automates critical workflows and reduces deployment timelines from months to weeks, ensuring a smooth transition to an AI-ready UC environment.

Ultimately, AI readiness kicks off with a crystal-clear understanding of your current UC stack and is complemented by a strategic roadmap for modernisation. Whether transitioning from legacy on-prem systems to cloud-based UCaaS solutions like Microsoft Teams, Zoom, or Cisco Webex, the right strategy will pave the way for a smooth, AI-compatible transformation.

How can organisations begin rapid digital adoption?

Once an organisation has migrated to its target UC stack, the next challenge is driving rapid digital adoption. The key to success lies in utilising automation and actionable insights. VOSS streamlines the onboarding process by minimising manual effort and ensuring that new employees are seamlessly integrated into collaboration tools. Instead of manually configuring access for each user, automated workflows provision new joiners efficiently—reducing friction and accelerating adoption.

However, automation alone isn’t enough—integrating actionable insights is vital for driving digital adoption. VOSS offers real-time analytics that monitors user engagement across all departments, highlighting areas needing support. This data-driven approach empowers IT teams to proactively target low-adoption groups and implement tailored interventions that enhance the overall user experience and boost the adoption of AI-enabled collaboration tools.

Additionally, championing and promoting “super users”—employees who successfully use the tools—can help establish best practices and encourage widespread adoption among teams. Tracking usage patterns means the organisation maximises ROI, prevents wasted licenses, and underpins company-wide digital maturity.

By fusing automation, insights, and employee engagement, organisations can supercharge digital adoption and make certain their UC stack delivers maximum value in the new age of the AI-powered workplace.

How does it improve the employee experience?

A well-optimised UC stack enhances employee experience by ensuring systems are dependable, automated, and easy to use for every employee. With automation, processes like onboarding become seamless—new employees get access to the right tools instantly, rather than dragging their heels for days for IT to configure accounts manually. This dramatically eliminates delays, reduces errors, and can bolster worker satisfaction.

Furthermore, VOSS provides real-time system insights, ensuring that UC environments operate with optimal efficiency and reliability. Notably, VOSS delivers digital experience monitoring (DEM) that puts user experience at the forefront. If employees face downtime, lag, or performance issues with their collaboration tools, frustration and lost productivity quickly follow. With DEM, VOSS goes beyond basic system health checks, continuously analysing the quality of service as it’s experienced by the end user.

By identifying issues before they escalate, VOSS enables IT teams to resolve potential disruptions proactively—often before employees even notice a problem. Whether pinpointing network bottlenecks, detecting anomalies in voice and video quality, or providing real-time alerts for service degradations, VOSS ensures a frictionless digital workplace.

With distributed workforces relying on a growing number of tools—including AI-powered solutions—visibility into user adoption is paramount. Understanding how employees engage with UC tools helps management improve processes, stop inefficiencies in their tracks, and build productivity even further. VOSS grants organisations the toolkit to foster a seamless, well-supported digital experience to enhance worker engagement, reduce frustration and friction, and facilitate employees to work smarter.

Maximising the value of your licenses

Many enterprises struggle with inefficient license management, often paying for unused seats or misallocated resources across their UC and AI tools. Without clear visibility, organisations may unknowingly maintain (sometimes thousands of) licenses that aren’t actively in use, leading to unnecessary waste.

VOSS provides comprehensive license insights and management tools, helping businesses track exactly what they’re using and where. For example, Microsoft Copilot licenses cost $30 per user per month – a significant investment for large enterprises. A 10,000-seat organisation could be spending millions annually, but how many of those users actually need full access? With real-time usage reports, businesses can identify inactive accounts, rightsize licenses, and ensure every allocation aligns with actual needs.

Beyond visibility, license allocation control is another challenge, particularly within Microsoft Teams. A single enterprise tenant often serves multiple departments, each with its own budget and priorities. VOSS enables organisations to divide, allocate, and manage licenses efficiently, ensuring resources are distributed fairly and appropriately across teams.

With proactive license management, structured allocation, and real-time insights, businesses can eliminate unnecessary waste, optimize their UC investments, and ensure their AI and communication tools are delivering maximum value.

What are some of the best early use cases of AI in UC?

AI is already transforming UC through automation, compliance monitoring, and predictive analytics. The superpower to streamline processes and reduce manual workload count among AI’s most instant benefits.

1. Automating Onboarding and Offboarding

In large enterprises with high employee turnover, efficient onboarding and offboarding are essential. VOSS’s AI-powered automation tool ensures that new hires are promptly provided with the correct UC tools and permissions while simultaneously automating offboarding processes to securely revoke access. This integrated approach streamlines operations, minimises security risks, and reinforces compliance.

2. AI-Driven Compliance Monitoring

For industries like banking, meeting room devices must comply with security policies. AI can monitor firmware versions in an ongoing capacity, compare device configurations against a “golden template”, and automatically reset settings daily. This use case not only reduces IT overhead but also enforces the strictest of security standards.

3. Predictive Analytics for Performance Optimisation

Beyond Gen AI, traditional machine learning techniques such as anomaly detection and trend forecasting are revolutionising UC management. VOSS harnesses AI to track license usage, network performance, and system load over time, predicting potential failures before they impact operations.

From minimising IT workload to bolstering security and proactively preventing system failures, AI is already delivering tangible, measurable value in UC. These early use cases establish the foundations for a more innovative, efficient AI-driven workplace.

Conclusion

As AI continues to emerge into something truly groundbreaking, its integration into UC offers enormous potential to streamline processes, improve productivity, refine security, and optimise costs.

By adopting AI-powered automation, compliance monitoring, and predictive analytics, organisations can create a more efficient, productive, and secure digital workplace from the off, laying the groundwork for ongoing success in the AI revolution.