9 AI Trends in UCaaS You Need to Know About

UCaaS is one of the biggest communication trends in the world today.

Unified Communications as a Service (UCaaS) provides businesses of all sizes with the scalability and flexibility they need to respond to an ever-changing business landscape. Unlike standard on-premises UC, UCaaS can adapt to suit the demands of any market, and it’s often available at a much lower cost.

According to Global Newswire, the UCaaS market will achieve a value of around $36.45 billion by 2026. Many specialists regard this product to be the fastest-growing “as a service” offering in the communication space.

One of the factors that make UCaaS so compelling is its ability to level the playing field among bigger and smaller brands. With UCaaS, any company can tap into exceptional call quality and communication services. Organizations of all sizes also have the freedom to access disruptive new technology through UCaaS, like artificial intelligence.

Today, we’ll be looking at some of the biggest trends paving the way for UCaaS intelligence.

AI and UCaaS: The Perfect Team

Artificial Intelligence is no longer a concept relegated to science fiction movies.

Today, we see AI wherever we go. It’s present in our smart speakers, responding to human voice requests in a matter of seconds. AI is also planted firmly within analytics systems, allowing businesses to collect and understand data at speed.

AI is also reshaping communication as we know it. Boasting a global market size of around $327.5 billion, AI has the potential to influence every part of our personal and professional lives. However, the biggest impact for many groups seems to be in the communication stack.

Artificial Intelligence has paved the way for smart assistants that boost employee experience, conversational intelligence, and even sentiment analysis.

Let’s look at some of the trends your company should be aware of.

1. Conversational AI for Sentiment Analysis

Perhaps the best-known version of AI making its way into UCaaS right now, conversational intelligence is everywhere. The demand for conversational intelligence began to increase as consumers become more familiar with tools like Amazon Alexa and Siri on the iPhone.

Conversational intelligence in UCaaS refers to any component of the communication stack that can respond to voice. For instance, intelligent IVR systems can make it easier for customers contacting a company to get to the person they need to speak to straight away. An IVR that can recognize human voice can easily pick up on keywords and transfer clients to the employee best suited to solve their issue. Conversational intelligence also paves the way for sentiment analysis.

Though most commonly used in CCaaS (Contact Centre as a Service), sentiment analysis can play a significant role in various UCaaS spaces too. For instance, when a sales team is having a conversation with a client, it’s important for them to determine how the customer feels at any given moment.

An AI algorithm can use sentiment to determine when the best time to issue upsell or cross-sell offers might be.

2. AI Assistants for Employees

Many companies today are laser-focused on the concept of customer experience. We know that the only true way to differentiate our brands from our competitors, is through the most meaningful interactive moments. To create these meaningful moments, however, employee experience also needs to be considered.

Conversational platforms have learned how to automate and scale one-to-one conversations to help take over some of the discussions that employees have. IVR tools can even detect the source of a customer’s problem and help them solve it without employee insight.

However, AI in UCaaS isn’t just about replacing the human worker. Virtual assistants are increasingly augmenting the modern team, by giving employees access to valuable information in real-time. In a UCaaS meeting, an AI assistant can instantly bring up a calendar to book a follow up call with just one spoken word. The same tool can also examine shared calendars in a meeting space to find gaps that work for both parties.

Voice assistants and bots in the UCaaS environment can make it quicker and simpler for employees to complete tasks and access information. The more efficient the average employee is, the more likely you are to drive fantastic customer experience.

3. AI Process Optimization

One of the major benefits of AI in any environment is its incredible ability to collect and process information. Today’s businesses collect and produce an incredible amount of data every day. This information has the potential to guide us towards better outcomes for our business. However, it would be impossible for any team to sort through the raw data and leverage insights on their own.

Artificial intelligence built into a UCaaS analytics and reporting system can help. Already, UCaaS connects the various parts of the communication environment together. This means that your AI solutions can collect information from the whole communication stack, reducing the risk of inaccuracies. When you have a combined environment, it’s easier to get a full picture of the customer and employee journey.

After collecting raw data from various environments, your AI algorithms can sort through that information to surface valuable trends and insights. For instance, an AI solution within your UCaaS system could show you when your employees are most likely to receive calls, so you can increase your bandwidth for SIP at certain times of the year. AI can also show you information about which processes are driving the most sales or revenue for your team.

4. Network Optimization

Network optimization is becoming an increasingly crucial consideration in the age of UCaaS and cloud-based communications. Being able to access the best network connections ensures that you reduce your chances of missed and dropped calls which could harm your brand reputation. Fortunately, AI applications in the telecommunications industry can help with this.

UCaaS analytics solutions can assist with quality management by tracking various aspects of your technology environment in real-time. An AI system can constantly monitor the performance of your networks, and let you know when your SIP or VoIP communications are struggling. AI can even use historical data to predict when spikes might occur and help businesses to avoid issues in the future.

Some UCaaS vendors even offer network optimization and quality management as professional services alongside your UCaaS subscription

5. Predictive Maintenance

We touched on predictive maintenance in the section above, but it’s valuable enough to deserve its own section. Predictive analytics are an increasingly essential part of the AI environment. Because artificial intelligence is so effective at collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data, it can also effectively pinpoint trends in your historical information that you may have missed.

When you have AI analytics working within your UCaaS environment, you can also unlock data-driven insights that allow you to monitor and protect your equipment. It’s possible to predict potential failures and spikes based on patterns that you’ve seen in the past. Your AI solution can even let you know when data center problems might emerge, so you can take action instantly.

From a short-term perspective, network intelligence and automation allows for better root-cause analysis when you’re attempting to find the reason for certain issues. However, long-term, concepts like machine learning can make it easier to detect communication issues in real-time. Companies like AT&T are already using machine learning to predict where potential problems might emerge and restore services before a customer notices an outage.

6. Intelligent Automation

As mentioned above, AI solutions can manage a host of tasks on their own, without the need for human interaction. This means that companies can easily automate certain activities within the workflow, using AI bots. AI solutions are best suited to automating repetitive tasks that would otherwise waste the valuable time of human employees. You can use your service to streamlining the execution of things like data entry and order fulfilment.

Automation can even make a difference in the collaboration environment, by making it easier for team members to focus on the conversation in question, rather than taking notes. In the background of a video meeting, an AI assistant can work to instantly transcribe and record information so that people can come back and check their notes at a later time.

According to Forrester, around 44% of customer service organisations are already using Robotic Process Automation to gain a competitive advantage. However, there’s a good chance that this technology will become table stakes in all companies too.

7. Intelligent Security

We touched on predictive maintenance in the section above, but it’s valuable enough to deserve its own section. Predictive analytics are an increasingly essential part of the AI environment. Because artificial intelligence is so effective at collecting and analyzing huge amounts of data, it can also effectively pinpoint trends in your historical information that you may have missed.

When you have AI analytics working within your UCaaS environment, you can also unlock data-driven insights that allow you to monitor and protect your equipment. It’s possible to predict potential failures and spikes based on patterns that you’ve seen in the past. Your AI solution can even let you know when data center problems might emerge, so you can take action instantly.

From a short-term perspective, network intelligence and automation allows for better root-cause analysis when you’re attempting to find the reason for certain issues. However, long-term, concepts like machine learning can make it easier to detect communication issues in real-time. Companies like AT&T are already using machine learning to predict where potential problems might emerge and restore services before a customer notices an outage.

8. The Intersection of IoT and AI

The intersection of IoT and AI appears to be emerging most in the collaborative part of the UCaaS environment, particularly following the pandemic. Meeting room sensors that can track the number of employees in a specific office space can help to ensure that too many people aren’t sharing a room at the same time. Computer intelligence and cameras can also detect the temperature of the people in the room, or even determine what the atmosphere is like.

The internet of things and artificial intelligence work well together in a range of environments. They can enable self-service environments for customers who want to check out from a store without having to speak to a professional. These tools can also make it easier for teams to log into meeting rooms when with device proximity detection, so no-one has to touch a shared screen.

The chances are that sensors, IoT, and AI will continue to rise in popularity going forward, as companies look for ways to make their meeting rooms more secure and safe for the new age of hybrid work.

9. Chat Bots and Meetings

Finally, artificial intelligence in meetings is also improving the way we connect on a global scale.

One of the better-known examples of UCaaS AI is the chatbot, while chatbots are often best-known for their impact on the customer service market, they can also be helpful in various other parts of UCaaS too. Chatbot technology can offer team members access to a repository of knowledge that they can instantly search through to find information when they’re collaborating with team members.

AI solutions are also contributing to the way employees meet in a hybrid workspace. Intelligent microphones can detect human voice and block out external sounds to make audio clear. The same kind of intelligent systems can also improve video conferencing experiences, by zooming in on employee faces automatically, or responding to gestures.

Cisco recently introduced its own intelligent gesture recognition system to ensure that everyone in a team meeting could share how they felt about a conversation, without disrupting the flow.

A More Intelligent Future for UCaaS

Artificial Intelligence is a technology solution gaining attention all across the globe. As companies continue to rely on technology for innovation and growth, AI promises to deliver more data-driven, intelligent decision-making.

Whether you’re using AI in UCaaS to help you analyze the quality of your calls and maintain better conversations, or you’re accessing intelligent assistants, virtually anyone can benefit. The potential only keeps growing. There’s no doubt that AI will continue to play a significant role in the way that we collaborate and communicate in the years to come.