Today, organizations understand the pressing need to expand and enhance their digital sales and support solutions to address new customer demands. Consumers are demanding anytime, anywhere services. While many companies have bolstered their web and mobile presence, customers still turn to the contact center when they need additional support. Given this trend, businesses must modernize and improve their contact center capabilities. Five9 recently held a joint analyst call with several of its customer to share how various companies were evolving their contact centers.

The hour-predicting model is fed by a variety of data, such as the business hours of other nearby shops, information from a business's website, and even Google Street View images of storefronts and any visible window signs that list its hours. It also considers when a business owner last manually changed hours and when its popular times--aggregated and anonymized location history data of customers visiting the business--are busiest. So one way Google can tell that business hours are inaccurate is if the busiest times occur when a business is supposedly closed.

Google announced it will be using artificial intelligence (AI) and a machine learning (ML) model to automatically update business hours and real-world road information. The goal of these initiatives is to provide users with more up-to-date information about neighborhood changes. Though research into AI began in the 1950s, it didn't begin to make deep learning breakthroughs until relatively recently. This is largely because machine learning progressed quite significantly post-2010. "From my experience, I saw that ML algorithms are no longer the bottlenecks. To be sure, they are far from perfect, and there's a lot of work to be done, but that work is happening at breakneck speed," Edo Liberty, the former head of Amazon's AI lab and current CEO of Pinecone, a vector database for similarity search said in a February 22 interview with Search Engine Journal.

Google has shared how it's using artificial intelligence, including its restaurant-calling Duplex tech, to try and keep business hours up to date on Google Maps. The company says that if it is confident enough in the AI's prediction of what a business's hours should be, it will update the information in Maps. In a blog post, Google outlines the various factors its AI analyzes to determine whether it should do these updates. First, it looks at when the business profile was last updated, other similar shops' hours, and Popular Times data to decide how likely it is that the hours are incorrect. For example: if Google sees that a lot of people visit the shop when it's supposedly closed, that may be a red flag.

Building a map is complex, and keeping it up-to-date is even more challenging. Think about how often your city, town or neighborhood changes on a day-to-day basis. Businesses and shops open and close, stretches of highway are added, and roadways change. In today's Maps 101 installment, we'll dive into two ways Google Maps uses advancements in AI and imagery to help you see the latest information about the world around you every single day. Over the past few years, businesses have experienced a lot of change -- including constantly updating operating hours based on changing pandemic-related restrictions.

Our world is becoming more and more digital every day. Artificial intelligence and machine learning continue to grow strongly. Talking or chatting with a virtual robot is becoming more common, and we are even getting used to it. It is no longer necessary to look up the information yourself or review the FAQ section; even if you want to get a precious piece of info outside the working hours of the customer care team the automated Chatbot will help you! Also, you can simply ask the virtual assistant.

Quanergy Systems, Inc., a leading provider of OPA-based solid state LiDAR sensors and smart 3D solutions for automotive and IoT, announced the release of QORTEX DTC 2.2, the latest version of its 3D perception software, designed for advanced smart city and security applications. In June, Quanergy entered into a definitive merger agreement with CITIC Capital Acquisition Corp. (NYSE: CCAC) ("CCAC"). Upon closing of the transaction, the combined company will be named Quanergy Systems, Inc. and is expected to be listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) under the ticker symbol "QNGY." The transaction is expected to close in the fourth quarter of 2021, subject to satisfaction of customary closing conditions. QORTEX DTC is a core proprietary computer vision software platform compatible with Quanergy's suite of LiDAR sensors.

A simple and effective rule of 3 to consider when leading prospects through your sales funnel to the finish line. What if I could give you a simple blueprint on how to effectively navigate a qualified lead through your sales funnel and across the finish line? How many hours and resources could you save and invest elsewhere by sticking to the rule of 3 when it comes to sales communications? One thing I know for certain, our B2B website contact form leads are our most promising leads to close and in most instances, they close in record time. I invite you to stick along for the ride as I reveal how to use the rule of 3 in the sales process.

According to the Google support page, Google Duplex will now be available in the UK, Australia, and Canada. Moreover, VentureBeat & TheVerge Reports has discovered a new addition of phone numbers on the support page that Google has started to use when calling via Duplex from a distinct country. Google also elucidated that it's not a full rollout of the service and it is using Duplex mainly to contact businesses in these new countries so that business hours can be updated for Google Maps and Search. Even the CEO Sundar Pichai has highlighted this use of Google Duplex for business last month, as he mentioned in his blog that in the coming days, businesses will be able to easily mark themselves as'temporarily closed' just using Google My Business. Moreover, the core purpose of using this artificial intelligence (AI) technology Duplex is to make it possible to reach businesses to confirm their updated business hours and reflect them accurately when people look at Search and Maps.

In today's world, the majority of businesses have some sort of an e-shop or are e-commerce oriented (meaning: good portion of business can be done online). However, what if your Customer has an issue, and she/he needs to contact the Support, and it is outside of your working hours? Well – in that case, let us introduce you to Chatbots. Chatbots (shortened from'chat robots') are computer programs that can assist your business, and your customers, by'catching' some of the key-words that Customers ask, and may provide the needed response to the questions, outside of your business hours. You, perhaps, already have heard of some of the chatbots: Siri, Alexa, Google Home?