From the release of a new innovation that ties two CX giants to more industry layoffs, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
Kore.ai Releases a Conversational IVR for the Genesys Cloud CX Platform
Kore.ai has developed a GenAI-powered conversational IVR for the Genesys Cloud CX platform.
The “Voice Gateway” solution detects intent before automating the query upfront or passing the customer through to a relevant live agent.
In doing the latter, the conversational IVR may also gather information for the agent upfront to streamline the subsequent interaction.
Interested customers can access the application on the Genesys AppFoundry, a marketplace of solutions offering applications and integrations to boost customer and employee experiences.
Raj Koneru, CEO and Founder of Kore.ai, commented on the launch of Voice Gateway on Genesys AppFoundry: “As a Genesys AppFoundry partner, Kore.ai will strive to help our joint customers deliver outstanding customer experiences.
The Voice Gateway powered by generative AI and conversational AI will become a critical differentiator for brands that leverage this technology to improve their market performance and competitive standing.
Voice Gateway routes conversations to voice and digital channels, answers customer queries 24/7, and provides personalized self-service. (Read on…).
Qualtrics Lays Off 14 Percent of Its Workforce
Qualtrics has laid off 14 percent of its workforce as part of an organizational restructure.
The VoC stalwart follows many other CX tech juggernauts in making layoffs in 2023.
And Zig Serafin, CEO of Qualtrics, told a familiar story when announcing the news: the company’s organizational structure had become too complicated.
After a pandemic-driven business surge, Qualtrics seemingly grew too quickly – and somewhat unsustainably.
Salesforce, Zendesk, and many others have painted a similar picture when announcing their layoffs.
Another example is SAP, which acquired Qualtrics in 2018 and continues to own a majority stake in the company. Earlier this year, it announced plans to lay off 2.5 percent of its global workforce.
Soon after, Qualtrics was acquired by investment firms Silver Lake and CPP Investments for $12.5BN, including SAP’s remaining 71 percent stake in Qualtrics.
Going deeper into the rationale behind the job cuts in a memo to employees, Serafin explained: “Simply put, the organizational structures, work processes, and the way we made decisions previously don’t work for the company we’ve become or the company we aspire to be.
The result is an organizational structure that will enable our teams to work better together, bring new innovations to market faster, and make it easier for our customers and partners to do business with us.
Employees made redundant will receive a minimum of ten weeks of severance pay, health insurance, equity vesting, as well as outstanding quarterly bonuses. (Read on…).
Dialpad Showcases Its Latest Generative AI Innovation for Contact Centers
During the recent Google Next event, Dialpad showcased its latest generative AI (GenAI) innovation for contact centers.
To the surprise of few observers, Dan O’Connell, Chief AI & Strategy Officer at Dialpad, started with an auto-summarization feature – which many rival CCaaS providers also offer.
Indeed, O’Connell highlighted how large language models (LLMs) could condense an entire customer conversation into four or five punchy sentences.
In doing so, he showcased how Dialpad has teamed up with Google Vertex to create such a solution.
Yet, he then said something more profound:
A lot of us are caught up in the idea of summarization. We forget the ability to leverage LLMs for categorization – and that is one of the biggest opportunities.
Already, Dialpad allows its customers to categorize each conversation by purpose and outcome. That enables contact centers to track their demand drivers and first contact resolution (FCR) rates more accurately.
Moreover, Dialpad also lifts action items to support agents in their post-interaction processing activities. (Read on…).
UiPath’s New Autopilot Turns Paper Documents Into Automation Apps
UiPath has introduced ‘Autopilot’, a virtual assistant that leverages generative AI and RPA to quickly automate work from natural language prompts.
The assistant – which sits across various apps in the UiPath platform – enables professional and citizen automation developers to create automations, code, and expressions using natural language.
Yet, perhaps the standout feature is Autopilot’s ability to turn paper documents into automation-powered apps in a single click.
Such a capability has significant potential in accelerating digital transformation initiatives.
Graham Sheldon, Chief Product Officer at UiPath, added: “By taking a user’s words, screenshots, or PDFs from paper documents as an input, Autopilot for Apps can create a robust automation workflow or interfaces for automation.
This enables ‘one-click digital transformation’ for organizations by taking automated action.
“[Also,] UiPath can operationalize the transformative force of AI through automation, seamlessly integrating intelligence into everyday operations, automating all knowledge work, up-leveling employees, and revolutionizing entire industries with AI at work.
“And importantly, the UiPath AI Trust Layer will allow customers to use these new AI capabilities with confidence, knowing their data is secure.”
Sheldon concluded: “Automation is the best path to deliver on whatever AI conceives.” (Read on…).
