Vonage has launched an artificial intelligence-powered assistant for its unified communications as a service (UCaaS) offering. The firm said its assistant is designed for businesses that use its UCaaS offering but do not have a fully-fledged contact centre. The assistant uses AI and machine learning to create conversational experiences for customers in natural language. Savinay Berry, EVP of Product and Engineering for Vonage, said: "In addition to reducing and optimizing IT costs and resources, enterprises are enhancing the customer experience with the use of AI as a part of their communications strategy. "In today's modern workplace, consumers expect to get the information they want, when they want it and they expect it to be easy to do business with a brand" "As one of the first providers to offer this kind of solution for unified communications, Vonage is enabling businesses to leverage AI to improve their business processes.

Brian is the co-founder and CTO of Dialpad, the leader in AI-powered communications and collaboration. "Unified communications" is a term that has been used for the past 30 years to describe anything that brings together some combination of voice, video and messaging. As technology progresses, more platforms have declared themselves to be "unified." Unfortunately, most simply give the illusion of unification. The rise of the cloud supported more seamless product integrations -- which, in turn, made it easier to declare something "unified" as long as it strung together a messaging and calling component into one interface.

In this special guest feature, Sam O'Brien from RingCentral, outlines how AI-driven tools and advancements are changing the face of UC for businesses. Sam is the senior website optimization and user experience manager for Europe, the Middle East and Africa at RingCentral. He has a passion for innovation and loves exploring ways to collaborate more with dispersed teams. The potential applications of AI are stunningly wide-ranging. There's hardly an industry, niche, or sector where the tech isn't proving to be a game changer.

The buzz around artificial intelligence (AI) is almost deafening. Every industry is looking at how they can apply the power of AI to enhance productivity or improve decision-making. But despite its recent stardom, AI isn't as new as it may seem. The concept of AI has been around since 1950 when Alan Turing published his paper Computing Machinery and Intelligence, which sparked a new way of considering technology's potential for comprehension and thought. AI, and the relationship between artificial intelligence and unified communications and technologies, however, has had its stops and starts over the years.

Enterprises are beginning to pay attention to the potential benefits of artificial intelligence in communication... You forgot to provide an Email Address. This email address doesn't appear to be valid. This email address is already registered. You have exceeded the maximum character limit.

Artifical intelligence will bring many benefits to unified communications, but shallow, consumer-grade AI is not currently up to the task of helping enterprises, according to a speaker at the UC EXPO show. Networking analyst Zeus Kerravala told the London-based show earlier this month that a general set of problems persists in UC, mostly relating to system usability. These include uncertainty over who is in a meeting and who should have been invited, not knowing how to join a meeting, share documents or content, or how to make video features work properly. Future AI-enhanced UC systems could improve meetings with features such as: more intuitive call recording or transcription, perhaps based on keywords; facial recognition and automated identification to aid meeting set-up; or features such as intelligent speaker tracking. Looking further ahead, more advanced AI features could offer users recommendations on who should join a team meeting, proactively finding and loading useful content, or generating minutes.

As published by Insights Success Magazine "Tea. You do not want to get out of bed. But the alarm on your mobile phone is ringing, and you've got things to do. So with those four iconic words, spoken into your WhatsApp, with your eyes still scrunched closed, Unified Inbox's (UIB) UnificationEngine (UE) Intelligent IoT Messaging platform hasn't just unified communications, it's turned on the smart water kettle in your kitchen. Seamlessly bringing together Artificial Intelligence (AI), the Internet of Things (IoT), and unified messaging, thanks to Natural Language Processing (NLP), those four words are boiling the water for your morning cup of tea. UIB makes it as easy for you to chat, via voice and text message, with your "things" as it is with your friends. Unified Communications company UIB's patented UE is the world's first true intelligent IoT messaging platform. UE's device- and platform-agnostic middleware enables machines and equipment to communicate with both people and things. Users can remotely control connected devices using simple natural language messages (e.g., "Tea, Earl Grey Hot" or simply, "Boil water") and receive alerts and notifications (e.g., ""Your water will be ready in two minutes" and "You have three days of milk left, shall I re-order?") on the communications channels you already use.

The global unified communication (UC) as a service market is projected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of more than 25% between 2017 and 2021, according to market research firm Technavio. The increasing leveraging of enterprise and consumer technology such as solutions to communicate effectively with customers will fuel the demand for unified communication, the report said. In contact centers, the emergence of artificial intelligence and robotics technology will help contact centers automate the contact center process. The rise of machine learning technology, cognitive computing, and behavioral analytics will fuel the demand for UC in this market segment, Technavio said. In enterprise collaboration, vendors are offering solutions that enhance the collaboration among employees, suppliers, and clients and are simple to deploy, less expensive, and more powerful.

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