DALLAS TEXAS, Nov. 2, 2017 – AI-powered voice assistants are changing the way we live. Hundreds of millions of people use these assistants regularly to check the weather, wake up on time, and find their way around town. Yet there have been no virtual assistants to help us at work-- until now. Today at Cisco Partner Summit, we announce Cisco Spark Assistant. It is the world's first enterprise-ready voice assistant for meetings.

We're all familiar with Siri, Alexa, and Google Assistant--virtual assistants that help you save time and get things done at home like check the weather, turn on your TV, set a reminder, or summon your car from the garage. These products are great in your personal life, but what about at work? Have you ever been late for a meeting, either because you don't know how to connect or you're wandering the halls trying to find an available room? How many times have you forgotten to record a meeting or write down action items? What if you had a virtual assistant that could do all of those things and more? Imagine how much more productive you could be by focusing on what's important – getting work done with your team.

Cisco introduces Spark Assistant and Spark Room 70, and lays out its AI roadmap. Cisco this week is holding its annual reseller conference, Partner Summit, in Dallas. When Rowan Trollope, SVP & GM of IoT and Applications at Cisco, delivered his keynote today, the company unveiled its AI-powered voice assistant with the not so inventive name of "Cisco Spark Assistant." There is, of course, a veritable cornucopia of voice assistants out there, as we can ask Siri, Google, Alexa, Cortana or other popular AIs a question and get a prompt answer back. The reasons that communications and collaboration industry professionals should care is because the Spark AI is entirely focused on improving meetings.