Disclosure: The author does not directly own shares of the companies mentioned in this post, although a portion of mutual funds and/or ETFs in the author’s investment portfolio may consist of these shares.
It was wonderful to attend Enterprise Connect last week, again held at the Gaylord Palms Orlando. The best part of these industry conferences is always the people, meeting attendees and reacquainting with others. The keynotes and sessions are great, of course, offering a chance to learn something new or just to get different perspectives on things.
Last year was when artificial intelligence came onto the radar of UC/CCaaS vendors as they scramble to embed generative AI into their products and made some very enticing announcements. This year there’s an odd sense of confidence among vendors regarding genAI, as it appears that almost all of them were able to deliver on the promises and then some.
This show used to be dominated by one or two vendors many years ago, but not so much in recent years. Just about all UC/CCaaS vendors now compete and/or partner with each other, opting to resemble an “open” platform instead of losing a chance at booking a customer just because of certain features or components in the contact center.
Although AI was everywhere all at once at Enterprise Connect, there were some vendors that continue to focus on their core competency and niche. They still realize the importance of AI, particularly in the area of CX, but they do not want it to be a distraction.
Some attendees also shared that sentiment, alongside confusion and exhaustion. Judging by the fact that studies have shown a majority of contact centers still haven’t migrated to the cloud, it is understandable that the AI push may thrown yet another wrench into their roadmaps and strategies.
Summary of briefings and updates
Also refer to my LinkedIn posts (Day 1a, 1b; Day 2; Day 3a, 3b).
Anywhere365. This company pioneered leveraging Microsoft Teams and the Microsoft tech stack to stand up omnichannel CCaaS. And with the acquisition of Deepdesk in February 2024, it plans to continue to innovate with AI-powered features to take its Dialog Cloud platform to another level.
Verizon Business. There are three CCaaS solutions offered by Verizon Business: Virtual Contact Center (“VCC,” partnership with NICE), Genesys Cloud, and Webex Contact Center. But at the expo they’re focused on informing attendees of the value their CX services can add. There’s also a distinct advantage being a major wireless carrier: they can partner with Microsoft to offer a single-number user experience for subscribers, called Verizon Mobile for Microsoft Teams (“VMMT”), the first to offer this new solution in the U.S.
Avocor. Avocor had an impressive booth, co-branded with Logitech, filled with massive and sleek displays. It’s one of the few vendors at the expo that showed off hardware products. But don’t be fooled because embedded in these devices are proprietary software that enables the seamless user experience when using them, from instant connectivity to modularized accessories.
Miratech. The company, founded in Ukraine, is known from its intimate relationship with Genesys. However, the company has grown to be a multifaceted technology solutions provider, including expertise in Google CCAI and its own MiraCloud offering.
Minerva CQ. Collaborative AI, as opposed to “black box” AI, is at the core of Minerva CQ. It’s a Silicon Valley startup which has booked a few customers worldwide, such as Enel, Endesa, Siemens, and Chargepoint. And with the extensive experience gained from helping these clients, Minerva CQ has also developed a LLM for EV charging customer service.
Cyara. Chatbots and conversational AI are everywhere now, so it’s even more critical to test and QA them before going live. Recently several companies have made headlines (or even gone to court) because of misbehaving chatbots. Botium, winner of the show’s “Most Innovative Use of AI” award, and several other Cyara products, can monitor, test, and assure the whole customer experience journey.
Afiniti. Believe it or not, Afiniti has been around for 17 years in the CX AI space. The company is highly data-driven and confident in its ability to deliver positive results to clients. That’s why it also touts a unique business model in the industry — instead of selling hardware, software, or services, it earns commission based on the measurable benefit gap at the end of each month.
Hammer. Now part of Infovista, Hammer has been around CX testing and QA for a long time. Back then it was mostly known for load testing IVRs, call routing, and agent desktops. But now the contact center has evolved and without missing a beat, Hammer is still around to ensure the quality of the CX.
PolyAI. With the letters “AI” in its name, you know the company is very serious about being the best “customer-led conversational platform for enterprise.” The company was founded by PhDs who’d spent some time at Big Tech and backed by notable VC firms. As much is its conversational AI sounds humanlike, PolyAI is a firm believer to not cross the uncanny valley as it sees that as an unproductive development in speech technology.
LeapXpert. Sometimes companies just need a solution to wrangle all employee communications into compliance. It’s becoming a very challenging problem with the prevalence of BYOD policies, numerous devics, and not to mention various operating systems and messaging apps. Digital communications governance (DCG) is where LeapXpert Communications Platform shines. The newly released Maxen application, powered by generative AI, enhances the platform by providing insights, fact-checking, and content recommendations.
Sprinklr. The social and digital channels CX company has been a full fledged CCaaS vendor. They’ve been present at many contact center industry events and haven’t been shy to battle the incumbents in the area of omnichannel support where Sprinklr has an advantage.
UJET. There’s no question who UJET’s most strategic CX technology partner is based on its booth display at the expo. All the signage and banners include “Google Cloud,” perhaps not so surprising considering its Silicon Valley roots. But that’s not to say it doesn’t play well with other tech providers as integrations are desired in CRM, WFM, or other components.
Innovation Showcase overview
Five out of 17 companies were selected by a panel of judges to present in the Innovation Showcase. Several prerequisites apply, one of them being the company cannot be a previous exhibitor, which means all five of them were rookies at Enterprise Connect:
Majority of these had AI in their portfolios, and they all have signed some impressive logos. The two that stood out were NLX and Verbal Transactions because their solutions and use cases were more impactful to the general user. NLX had a demo of a multimodal scenario which an AI guided the user using speech to navigate a mobile app. Verbal Transactions was a breath of fresh air because the company’s core focus centered on training and upskilling workers using realistic simulations with visual, audio, and interactive elements.
Unfortunately, these presenters weren’t offered a lot of time to go through their pitches and/or demos. And the fact that they weren’t exhibitors didn’t make it any easier for interested attendees to connect with them.
What’s next?
Several thoughts come to mind after during and after this year’s Enterprise Connect.
First, the enterprise communications industry, like most others, has never seen a new tech adopted so quickly and ingrained so deeply as generative AI. It is going to be prevalent and also taken for granted. Plus, soon there’ll be a gap between the AI “haves” vs. “have-nots” and it’ll be about survival in the marketplace.
Second, a new convergence is taking place between UCaaS and CCaaS. This is mainly driven by the need to expand the business, for profit and/or for market share. For an UCaaS vendor, branching into CCaaS is also a “low-hanging fruit” which doesn’t require too much new resources to accomplish.
Third, innovation has slowed — yes, even when we’re dazzled with generative AI. The industry really saw some innovations when VoIP and cloud computing came onto the scene. These two advancements spurred countless new applications and ideas which laid the foundation of the current market landscape, a huge part being the “as-a-service” boom.
More highlights and insights in the Enterprise Connect 2024 Industry Event Report for Premium (paid) subscribers.