Indian IT services firm Tech Mahindra has launched YANTR.AI, a cognitive artificial intelligence (AI) solution to automate and simplify field services. The company said that the cloud-based solution will enable its customers to address field services needs including enhanced technician productivity, improved service-level agreements (SLA), and reduce unmet demands across sectors such as telecom, utilities, oil and gas, retail, and other industries. "YANTR.AI is designed to provide operational efficiency, enhance productivity, and improve workflow control by combining advance analytics, AI, Machine Learning (ML) and optimisation along with people to hyper-automate field operations, thereby increasing cost efficiency and improving customer experience," the company said in a statement. "Today, there is an increasing need for technologies and platforms that turn insights into ready products that can be utilised by enterprises. To meet the burgeoning need to enhance business agility, simplify operations, and future-proof enterprises, we have launched this new solution," Birendra Sen, Business Head – Business Process Services, Tech Mahindra, said, explaining the purpose of the launch.

Salesforce today rolled out the next generation of Service Cloud, including enhancements to Cloud Voice and Einstein Bots. The company says that the features and products are intended to address the new reality brought about by the coronavirus pandemic. Over the past year, service agents moved quickly to work from home but were forced to rely on legacy technology that wasn't designed to manage distributed workforces. Today, parts of the world are beginning to reopen, but these reopenings are raising questions around updated policies, protocols, and safety measures. This adds a new level of challenge for agents, who are already contending with increased workloads.

As we prepare for all the 2020 predictions coming, I will bet you $50 that AI will appear on 90% of the lists (including mine). There is no denying that AI holds incredible potential for your business going forward, but in talking with service leaders I do hear some common myths that keep companies from realizing that potential as quickly as they could.

A growing number of organizations, from the smallest startups to the largest enterprises, all often bring up the same problem in our conversations with them: Even though they want to drive operating costs down, they also need to execute on an increasing volume of work. Some companies respond by deploying more systems. Others try throwing more people at the problem, like third-party contractors. Neither solution is ultimately productive, and both often create operational bottlenecks. We're seeing new AI solutions pop up in various respective industries to tackle the growing issues bubbling up within highly complex working groups.

According to media reports, China and the US are leading the way in adopting AI, with the former's percentage of AI patents granted growing by 190 per cent in a five-year period and the latter investing close to $10 billion in venture capital. Not to be left behind by the other two superpowers though, Russia's president has announced his intentions to make 30 per cent of its military equipment robotic by 2025. The compound annual growth rate of AI has hit 60 per cent and is still growing. The UK is itself funding over £603 million investment in AI and one industry here that stands to benefit from AI is field and customer service. Field service organisations increasingly feel the pressure to maximise the productivity and efficiency of their workforce so they get every job right on the first try, keeping customers happy and reducing costs through increased productivity and SLA compliance.

Badri is the Senior Vice President, Technology at Vonage - Video Engineering. As I speak with business leaders from around the world, I'm continually surprised by two important realities that seem to go unnoticed and that are poised to transform the way companies engage with their customers. First, while artificial intelligence (AI) remains a buzzword, many people are still unaware of how advanced algorithms have become. We're not talking about a collaborative filtering algorithm that predicts which Netflix shows you'll want to watch next. Today's algorithms are able to mimic human decision-making on tasks as complex as composing music and predicting what topics are of interest to your Congressional representatives.

Microsoft on Thursday announced a number of artificial intelligence, mixed reality and customer insights tools for Microsoft Dynamics 365 at its Microsoft Business Forward event in Paris. There is "a lot of hype around AI and MR," noted Rebecca Wettemann, vice president of research at Nucleus Research, "but these are real applications delivering value to customers today." Microsoft also announced it will publicly preview a new Microsoft Forms Pro this spring. There is "a consistent theme in all these offerings -- providing high degree of flexibility to enable citizen developers and power users while still maintaining technology governance and compliance," remarked Nicole France, principal analyst at Constellation Research. "Microsoft's advantage is its decades of investment in R&D across its portfolio, which it's bringing to bear on its business applications portfolio," Wettemann told CRM Buyer.

Microsoft is adding more AI-infused Dynamics 365 applications to its line-up. In addition toe the previously announced Dynamics 365 AI for Sales app, Microsoft also is introducing a Dynamics 365 AI for Customer Service app and a Dynamics 365 AI for Market Insights app this fall, officials said on September 18. In July this year, Microsoft made publicly available its 238-page release note document for its coming October 2018 wave of Dynamics 365 ERP and CRM applications. The October 2018 releases will include more than 100 incremental updates to the core Dynamics Sales, Marketing, Customer Service, Portals, Omni-channel Engagement Hub, Field Service,Project Service, Social Engagement, Finance and Operations, Talent, Retail, and Business Central products and services. Officials reiterated today that Microsoft will start rolling out its October 2018 Dynamics 365 and Power platform deliverables generally on October 1. Also: Microsoft's got a new plan for managing Windows 10 devices Back in July, Microsoft officials also demonstrated the coming Dynamics 365 AI for Sales app, which they said would be available in public preview form in October 2018.

With AI, "It's not just having the technology" but also "the deployed solution," says Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella. He now runs his own firm, Evans Strategic Communications LLC.) CLOUD WARS -- As the AI Age takes hold, Microsoft has unleashed an AI strategy that's as complete and ambitious as any you'll find from any company in the world. It's already in place in fast-food restaurants and in manufacturing plants, and Microsoft is ahead of everyone in extending and unifying AI's capabilities from the cloud to the edge. But that enormous potential won't be realized unless AI takes its proper place within the ever-widening set of Azure-centered technologies and services within the Microsoft portfolio. "AI is going to be one of the trends that is going to be the next big shift in technology," Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at a recent investor's conference.

Among the highlights: GE Digital released the most comprehensive Asset Performance Management (APM) solution on the market, as recognized by Gartner. ServiceMax was recognized (for the third year in a row) as the leader in field service management. And, Apple rolled out a native SDK for Predix. We watched machines become more productive and reliable, while the sensor networks tying them together grew smarter and more ubiquitous. As the pace of digital industrial innovation continues to accelerate, 2018 promises to be an even more exciting year.