Five9 has released two new product offerings that leverage ChatGPT-3 from OpenAI: AI Insights and AI Summaries.
AI Insights combines ChatGPT-3 with real-time transcription to automatically interpret customer conversations and cluster them into categories.
In grouping contacts together – by intent or various other traits – contact centers may quickly identify opportunities for automation and process improvement.
According to Mike Burkland, Chairman & CEO of Five9, it “is the latest example of what we call practical AI.”
Meanwhile, AI Summaries supplements its agent-assist solutions by auto-summarizing interaction transcripts and publishing them in the CRM.
Thanks to the power of the OpenAI’s large language models, this offering requires “little to no” professional services or tuning – improving time to value.
Such value stems from streamlining post-contact processing for agents, shaving seconds from every customer conversation, and potentially delivering significant savings for large operations.
The innovations add two new modules to Five9’s AI and automation portfolio, which also includes speech analytics, workflow automation, and IVA solutions.
Innovations That Underline Five9’s AI Ambition
Five9 launched the solutions during a recent earnings call, where Burkland noted continuous AI innovation as mission-critical to Five9’s continued growth.
ChatGPT will seemingly fuel much of this innovation. Indeed, Burkland stated:
We believe that AI and automation are at the core of the modern contact center. And generative AI, with the large language models, is game-changing.
Yet, before the truly “game-changing” innovation happens, ChatGPT may offer more quick wins in custom data charting, trending, and routing.
As such, clients can perhaps expect similar announcements in the near future. AI Insights and AI Summaries likely came first as they support Five9’s Fluid CX vision.
Moreover, by assisting conversational AI deployments and reducing handling times, the vendor can help its clients cut costs in tough economic climates and tight labor markets.
For this reason, Five9 has already experienced an uptick in its AI business – especially in enterprises.
“In the fourth quarter, 41 percent of RFPs (request for proposals) that came into our strategic and enterprise sales organization cited AI as the main or auxiliary reason,” added Burkland.
In addition to the surging AI demand, Burkland pinpointed the viability and desirability of cloud solutions, alongside the acceleration of digital transformation initiatives, as central to its growth.
Last quarter, these trends helped Five9 raise its revenues by 20 percent (YoY) to $208 million.
Keeping Tabs on Microsoft In CCaaS
During the earnings call, analysts seemed excited by the new ChatGPT-powered solution. Nevertheless, one questioned whether Microsoft will always have the upper hand in this arena, thanks to its close relationship with OpenAI.
After also referencing its Nuance acquisition and the growth of Teams, the analyst asked Burkland: do you see them being a viable player in this space longer term?
In response, Burkland noted that Five9 will always keep an eye on Microsoft but noted just how complex it is to build a leading CCaaS platform.
“It takes many years to really perfect a solution and be able to deliver the reliability and scalability,” he said. “The voice portion is so complex.”
A lot of folks believe they can enter the space very quickly, and it takes them a lot longer than they anticipate.
As Burkland suggests, Microsoft’s Dynamics 365 for Customer Service CCaaS solution is still somewhat in its infancy, and although it might attract SMBs, bigger businesses may have concerns.
Prominent industry analyst Zeus Kerravala alluded to these while recently predicting that the Microsoft contact center “will flop this year.”
However, Burkland is not writing Microsoft off in the long term.
“We’ll see where it leads. Some of them enter, realize how difficult it is, and exit, and others stick with it,” he concludes.
Big Customer Wins from the Avaya
While addressing analysts during the earnings call, Five9 shared three of its biggest wins from the quarter – all migrating from Avaya.
A BPO based in Spain and Latin America is the first in a deal that will likely deliver $4.3 million in annual recurring revenue (ARR) to Five9.
Sharing more details, Dan Burkland, President and Chief Revenue Officer at Five9, stated:
Five9 was chosen to replace many of their Avaya solutions, where they do not have the flexibility and full suite of applications that Five9 can provide, including omnichannel, IVA, and automation solutions their clients are demanding.
The second win is with a Fortune 500 clinical laboratory that provides diagnostic testing services throughout the US. It aspired to add automation and analytics to its contact center environment but found options limited in its legacy environment.
As such, it chose Five9 – also implementing its intelligent virtual agent (IVA) across digital channels and voice while utilizing the vendor’s deep integration with ServiceNow.
Overall, the deal seems set to deliver $3.8 million in ARR to Five9.
Finally, the vendor secured a contract win worth $2.3 million in ARR with a global business that partners with radiology facilities, equipping them with imaging systems and similar technologies.
Due to previous acquisitions, the organization had harnessed Avaya and Cisco on-premise systems but grew tired of the cumbersome reporting and disjointed channels.
“Five9 was chosen due to our end-to-end technology suite, our innovation, AI roadmap, and our quality, high-touch implementation and ongoing managed services,” added Burkland.
We also partnered very closely with Salesforce, while our key competitor aligned with a different CRM they were considering.
Each deal shows how Five9 is having success in luring customers away from Avaya – which may boost its future earnings as the vendor enters bankruptcy for the second time.
However, Mike Burkland suggested, “Most folks saw that coming for several years.”
Indeed, for a long time, Five9 has won business from Avaya’s legacy base, and Burkland implies this is the continuation of a longer-term trend rather than Avaya customers suddenly jumping ship.
Five9 Is Also Winning Customers from Cisco and Genesys
While Five9 secures much of its “displace and replace” business through Avaya, Mike Burkland notes that its wins often come through Cisco migrations too.
Moreover, since Genesys ditched its hybrid CCaaS solution, Five9 has reported an uptick in Genesys migrations – despite only offering a public cloud solution itself.
Discussing the legacy vendors Five9 displaces most, Burkland added:
It was two…. [then] we were seeing more Genesys become part of those three. One and two being Avaya and Cisco, with Genesys a distant third. Those are becoming neck and neck now between all three.
The statement is somewhat surprising, given the swirl of speculation surrounding Avaya. Nevertheless, it perhaps highlights why Cisco has renewed efforts to engage its legacy base, and Genesys CEO Tony Bates released a blog to clarify its support for on-premise customers.
As Five9 – and its cloud-native rivals, such as NICE – continue to secure significant enterprise wins, these actions seem necessary to preserve their deep customer bases.
For more from the Five9 CEO, check out our article: 5 New Year’s CX Predictions from Mike Burkland and Sheila McGee-Smith
