Some of us remember a time when devices were not able to respond to what you said verbally, although that now seems a long time ago. Behind all these suddenly loquacious machines, of course, are smart analytics that translate speech into text, text into intent and intent into appropriate responses. To sort out these new tools, Forrester has released its first evaluation, "The Forrester New Wave: AI-Fueled Speech Analytics Solutions, Q2 2018" (fee required). The research firm noted that it has issued two previous reports on the topic, although this is the first New Wave vendor evaluation. Eleven vendors were identified, summarized and categorized, with descriptions of their AI-powered machine learning and real-time capabilities included.

Consumers loath the automated enterprise call center. Nothing is more frustrating than yelling into a phone at an interactive voice recognition (IVR) system that just doesn't seem to understand what you need. But few realize most enterprises aren't fans of current automated call center solutions either, often complaining that the technologies are complicated, expensive and frustrating for users. Part of the issue is call center technology has evolved slowly. Today, nearly 80% of the call center market is still on premise, according to Talkdesk.