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Cisco makes Webex AI updates widely available

The Cisco AI Assistant in Webex Contact and the Webex AI Agent for self-service customer support are now generally available. More AI features are coming.

Cisco has launched an AI agent for automated customer service and an update of the Webex Contact Center AI assistant that helps service agents with customer interactions.

Cisco said Monday at Enterprise Connect that the AI technology is generally available. The offerings, introduced earlier this year, represent Cisco's latest step toward incorporating agentic AI in Webex Suite and Webex Contact Center.

The Webex AI Agent, which companies can order starting March 31, is a self-service virtual agent for customers who contact companies through Webex communication channels. Organizations can tailor the AI agent to meet their requirements.

The customization options include an autonomous agent capable of conducting dynamic conversations or scripted agents that operate on preconfigured responses.

The customer-facing agents are designed to answer routine and frequently asked questions in order to reduce calls and messages to human service representatives and prevent long customer wait times. The agents can also perform some routine tasks for customers.

Max Ball, a Forrester Research analyst, said consumers have not found self-service agents useful so far. A Forrester survey conducted last summer found that 67% of companies had a chatbot in production or near production, but only 16% of consumers used it regularly.

The findings indicate problems with how companies deploy the technology, not necessarily with the tech providers, who could sometimes do a better job coaching and helping the customers with virtual assistants, Ball said. Today's AI-powered self-service applications often make it difficult for people to ask the right questions to get useful responses.

"It's too easy to get into a confusing loop with it," Ball said. "Brands just don't understand the basics of designing a self-service application."

While generally available today, AI Assistant for Webex Contact Center will get an update in the second quarter, Cisco said. The new features will include suggested responses and real-time transcription for service agents talking to customers.

The current version of AI Assistant includes features such as summaries of calls transferred to another agent and customer satisfaction scores for each call.

Features coming to Webex Suite

Later in the year, Cisco plans to release more AI capabilities in Webex Suite, a collaboration and communication platform for hybrid work environments. The Webex updates include a Cisco AI Assistant upgrade that performs tasks across enterprise applications, such as Salesforce, ServiceNow and Jira. The assistant will also share meeting summaries across the apps.

Irwin Lazar, Metrigy president and principal analyst, said he expects collaboration software makers to share more information with other business applications over time.

"Where the real value for a third-party meeting tool comes from is how you can export that data in a multi-vendor shop," Lazar said.

AI capabilities coming to the Control Hub in Webex will allow IT administrators to access, search and manage all AI ecosystems in one place and customize them to meet an organization's needs. Administrators can also view analytics on AI usage, trends and employee adoption metrics.

Also coming later in the year is an upgrade of Webex Calling Customer Assist. The update includes more efficient call routing, AI assistance and analytics. Customer Assist is aimed at organizations such as retailers, bank branches, pharmacies and healthcare clinics. The feature is available through the Webex desktop or mobile app.

Also at Enterprise Connect, Cisco made Apple AirPlay available for Microsoft Teams Rooms software running on Cisco meeting room hardware. The integration will enable wireless content sharing from iPhones, iPads and Macs to Cisco devices.

Finally,  Cisco plans to provide a beta this month for native integration between the Epic cloud-based electronic health record system and Webex Contact Center. The integration will enable healthcare service agents to access patient information more easily, Cisco said.

Antone Gonsalves is an editor at large for Informa TechTarget, reporting on industry trends critical to enterprise tech buyers. He has worked in tech journalism for 25 years and is based in San Francisco. Have a news tip? Please drop him an email.

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