From more contact center GenAI innovation to CCaaS milestones, here are some extracts from our most popular news stories over the last seven days.
Google Gives Its CCaaS Platform a GenAI Makeover, Launches an Alternative Contact Center Solution
Google has announced three new GenAI-driven features for its Contact Center AI Platform: Knowledge Assist w/ LLMs, Summarizations for Calls & Chats, and Generative FAQs.
These features – as showcased during this week’s Google Cloud Next event – bolster the agent-assist and conversational intelligence features already within the CCaaS solution.
1. Knowledge Assist w/ LLMs
First, consider Knowledge Assist w/ LLMs – which is now in preview. The feature automates information retrieval for agents from the knowledge base, guides, and run books.
The solution then uses generative AI to spotlight snippets of information agents can use in their responses – across many channels.
As Shantanu Misra, Group Product Manager at Google Cloud, summarized:
Think of it as the info bot for your agents… It provides them with answers as the conversation is going on, so they don’t need to search for it.
Misra suggests that possible benefits of the solution include lower handling times, better agent responses, and increased customer satisfaction with agent effectiveness.
2. Summarizations for Calls & Chats
Now generally available, this solution automates post-contact summaries for agents, which they then upload to their CRM system.
As a result, agents don’t have to manually type contact summaries, which ensures a uniform format, circumvents the risk of human error, and – perhaps most crucially – saves time. (Read on…).
Salesforce on the Potential of Further Layoffs, GenAI In Customer Service, & More
Salesforce has revealed its Q2 results, enjoying revenue growth of 11 percent year-over-year (YoY).
While sharing such figures, the CRM leader raised its sales forecasts to amplify its optimism for the next six months.
The optimism comes after a prolonged focus on driving profitability and activist investor pressure – which may have contributed to layoffs, incentives to bring staff back to the office, and price hikes.
The benefits of these initiatives are now seemingly coming to life. However, is Salesforce out of the woods yet?
For now, that’s impossible to say. Yet, there are many fascinating threads to pull at from its earnings call – which share insight into the vendor’s future direction.
Here are five highlights from the call.
Benioff on Layoffs: We Hope That Is Behind Us
As Salesforce’s recent price hikes continue its push toward profitability, additional large-scale layoffs appear to be on the back burner.
Indeed, CEO Marc Benioff stated:
We’re not planning any other major restructuring efforts in the company today like what we saw earlier this year. We hope that that is one and done and behind us.
Benioff also noted how the company is now welcoming back many former employees and is investing in growing its headcount “in AI”.
However, he did warn of “normalized attrition” and noted that he wasn’t sure if layoffs had yet bottomed out.
Already, Salesforce’s employee base is down 11 percent from the start of the year. (Read on…).
Five9 Teases New AI Knowledge Distiller Solution, Showcases Its AI Insights Dashboard
Two weeks ago, Five9 celebrated its three-day CX Summit in Las Vegas.
The event featured customer success stories, partner exhibitions, and – perhaps most interestingly – new insights into its product roadmap.
That roadmap includes a new AI product: the Five9 AI Knowledge Distiller.
While not formally announced yet, Five9 offered a sneak preview of the solution and underlined how it might benefit end-users.
Here’s a quick overview, alongside other headline takeaways from the event.
The Five9 AI Knowledge Distiller
The Five9 AI Knowledge Distiller allows businesses to pull data from across the entire journey – plugging into applications such as Google Drive, Salesforce, Sharepoint, and more.
From there, it distills insights – as the name suggests – which contact centers can use in numerous ways. One of those includes augmenting intelligent virtual assistants.
Jonathan Rosenberg, CTO and Head of AI at Five9, somewhat implied this use case when introducing the solution at the Summit. He said:
Imagine – instead of having to type questions into the back end – you could ingest all of the knowledge about your company. So, the bot could just answer, well, anything.
“Imagine further, you could combine that vast knowledge with information about the customer, allowing the creation of personalized bots and assistance that could deliver unprecedented levels of service,” continued Rosenberg.
“Imagine that. Well, we imagined it, too. So today, I wanted to give you a sneak peek of the next member of the AI family here at Five9: the AI Knowledge Distiller.
“It allows you to curate knowledge from wherever it lives and put it everywhere.” (Read on…).
The Genesys Cloud CX Platform Surpasses One Million Users
The Genesys Cloud CX platform has surpassed one million users, as the CCaaS leader ended Q2 with nearly $1.2BN in annual recurring revenue (ARR).
Much of this growth stems from a hike in its enterprise install base. Indeed, the 50 biggest Genesys Cloud CX customers now average over 8,900 users on the platform. Year-over-year (YoY), that figure is up by more than 30 percent.
Moreover, the CCaaS platform has enjoyed significant growth across several sectors. For instance, its YoY revenue growth is up by 145 percent in retail, 120 percent in healthcare, and 65 percent in financial services.
Several big wins in Q2 also played their part in Genesys’s sharp enterprise customer growth. These include new and expanded deals with a global automaker, a Fortune 20 healthcare organization, and a Fortune 100 computer hardware business.
Migrations from its legacy base have likely helped secure such significant wins after Genesys pumped the breaks on its on-premise innovation last year.
In addition, some may have migrated from its Multicloud CX Platform, which Genesys began to shut down in October.
Nevertheless, the numbers seem impressive, with Genesys Cloud CX experiencing a 50 percent hike in overall revenue growth compared to the same quarter last year. (Read on…).
