These Are The Contact Centre AI (CCAI) Use-Cases & Microsoft Is Doubling-Down On It
This article looks at which elements constitute CCAI and Microsoft’s laser focus on these use-cases
There are a few elements which are aligning currently with regards to Conversational AI and Contact Centre AI…
The first is Gartner listing the 18 use-cases for CCAI. CCAI cannot be seen as a single monolith of a technology, and these 18 use-cases really do a good job to break down the different components of CCAI.
Often breakdowns of CCAI revolves around an organisations products and services. Or specific industries, like health care, telecoms, etc…
However, what I like about the Gartner use-case breakdown is that it is very generic in nature.
In the image above, is the Garner list of CCAI use-cases ranked from 1 to 18 in business value and feasibility.
The second element which is closely aligned, is the Gartner report on why chatbot implementations are failing, and giving clear guidance on how to increase the likelihood of a chatbot implementation being successful.
And then there is this surge from Microsoft in terms of CCAI functionality and features.
The Microsoft Digital Contact Center Platform uses AI and deep analytics to anticipate customer requests, predict intent, and provide rapid resolution.
~ Charles Lamanna
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Microsoft’s Foray Into CCAI
The current Microsoft strategy and multi-pronged approach to solving for CCAI are extensive and in a sense fragmented; and being fragmented is a good thing…
Below is a summery of how the Microsoft offering can be broken down into five areas: Engage, Personalise, Improve, Increase and Simplify. With a list of products listed under each of these areas…
The presence and impact of Nuance is evident, while Microsoft Cognitive Services is not really visible, but acts as an important enabler under the hood…
The platform understands why customers are calling and customises the experience to anticipate their needs with AI intent prediction.
~ Charles Lamanna
Microsoft AI Cognitive Services
In recent months there have been a number of exciting developments with regards to Cognitive Services from Microsoft…
On May 2022 Microsoft announced GODEL, which is designed for general-domain conversation and is fully open-sourced. This is in step with other Conversational AI open-source initiatives.
Also in 24 May 2022 Microsoft introduced summarisation and redaction for conversations and documents.
Microsoft has also gone global with speech enablement with extending their reach in terms of languages considerably, as seen below. Even though there are a few exceptions, but what is great is the STT and TTS pairings of voice capability per language. In the vast majority of implementations, you would require both TTS and STT.
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Lastly…
As I have stated before, The Gartner® Magic Quadrant™ for Conversational AI Platforms criteria excluded solutions and organisations which do not have a cohesive and complete offering in terms of a conversational AI solution. If a framework did not offer a singular stand-alone platform, it did not qualify for inclusion. Most notably, this excluded Microsoft.
And although Microsoft was excluded, it is obvious that Microsoft sees an enormous opportunity in Cognitive AI (CAI) and CCAI. One of their selling points is that they do not have to own the entire CAI or CCAI landscape. And emphasis is placed on:
- The open nature of Microsoft’s platforms
- Ease of integration into existing CAI and CCAI implementations
- With focus on ensuring interoperability and compatibility
…preemptively notify customers of special promotions and updates, which accelerates their purchase intent, and boosts revenue and long-term value.
~ Charles Lamanna
I’m currently the Chief Evangelist @ HumanFirst. I explore and write about all things at the intersection of AI and language; ranging from LLMs, Chatbots, Voicebots, Development Frameworks, Data-Centric latent spaces and more.
