Previewing Enterprise Connect 2024 and the State of Enterprise Communications – WebRTC.ventures

As I prepare to attend Enterprise Connect 2024 in Orlando next week, I’ve been thinking about what has changed around the state of large-scale business communications and enterprise-ready AI since last year’s event. I’m also very curious to hear what the speakers and vendors see on the horizon. 

My only full day there will be Wednesday March 27, so there’s going to be a lot to pack in!

The Current State of AI in the Enterprise

The keynotes I saw last year showcased impressive concepts and prototypes for widespread use of Generative AI in the enterprise. (Check out my Enterprise Connect 2023 recap.) One memorable scenario showed a complete Google Docs based journey where an AI Assistant generates meeting notes and turns them into follow up emails and sales presentations. This was a very clean and fully integrated, light-speed solution that did it all (based on your company data), without ever leaving Google Docs.

Does this mean my days fussing with PowerPoints over? I am not sure. There is so much hype around Generative AI that it’s hard to filter it down for very practically-minded people like myself. 

I’m sure that I will see even more forward-thinking advances from the keynotes and the exhibitors at Enterprise Connect next week. Yes, there is still a lot of noise, but implementation details and use cases are rising.

We’ve been writing about this a lot in our work, and looking at how to apply it to our clients.

Relevant WebRTC.ventures Projects

We’ve blogged recently about work we can do with our partners at Symbl.ai, and shown examples of integrating their AI/ML services with Amazon Connect. Here’s a couple of recent blog posts and demos that are relevant to those attending Enterprise Connect:

• Agent Assist. In this tourism example, we use Symbl’s Nebula LLM to power a generative AI backend to a travel agency contact center. As the human agent is talking with a human customer, the generative AI is transcribing the conversation in real-time, and providing suggested answers to the human agent in real-time. This is a very practical example of AI in the contact center, which goes beyond simple transcription services that we’ve had for a while. I like that it still maintains a human-in-the-loop model that ensures the protection of corporate brands.
• AI Agents. Consumers are already well accustomed to text-based AI chatbots, and these can be very effective in many industries as the work of our friends at NLX.ai shows. We are also looking at more autonomous AI agents that use Voice interfaces to directly speak with the consumer, taking the idea of an AI chatbot up a notch. This is a fascinating concept that we are working on. Although it’s not likely to reach full marketplace maturity in 2024, it will continue to grow and become more feasible over time.
• Real-time Translation. Another example we’ve blogged about is doing real-time translation in a voice conversation, which our team demonstrated between English and Spanish. This technology is rapidly advancing and something we expect to continue to work with in 2024.

For more discussion around these examples and other ways that LLMs can improve human communications in the enterprise, see last month’s WebRTC Live episode with Dan Nordale from Symbl.

At the end of that episode, I debuted a new monthly industry chat segment with WebRTC industry expert Tsahi Levent-Levi. Tsahi and I continued that discussion last week in a full-length WebRTC Live where we took a deep dive into today’s WebRTC industry. We talked about the impact of Zoom and WebRTC unbundling, as well as general competition between CPaaS solutions. I’ll be interested to see what Zoom is talking about at Enterprise Connect next week, as well as the other CPaaS providers in attendance like Vonage.

Some enterprises have also been using Twilio Video. Its discontinuation will remain an important topic throughout 2024. We recently published a detailed migration guide for moving from Twilio Video to the Amazon Chime SDK. You can find more posts from our team, as well as a host of other resources for our other partners like Daily and Vonage on our dedicated Twilio Video Migration page.

My Crystal Ball Expectations For Enterprise Communications in 2024

I’m excited to attend Enterprise Connect to see how much things have progressed in the last year in Enterprise-ready AI and to compare my expectations about what’s coming next.

Here’s a few things that I believe we will see more of in 2024:

• Continued implementation of click-to-call communication scenarios for the contact center, using customizations of tools like the Amazon Chime SDK combined with Amazon Connect
• Lots of continued hype around AI in the enterprise. But, with more specific implementation examples and case studies, like what we’ve written about with Symbl.
• The use of generative AI will grow, but in limited use cases initially in order to make sure it’s of actual value to customers and to minimize brand risk
• I think the reality for the short term is not about things like complete AI-driven office suite tools, but very specific use cases like Agent Assist in the contact center. We’ll see more specific offerings around that in 2024, including better packaging of different toolsets. You’ll see more about that in our work as well.

I’ll be interested to see how my expectations above line up with what others are talking about, and I’m sure I will leave with new inspiration, new ideas, and new opportunities.

AI and WebRTC Communications in the Contact Center

What are you looking forward to at Enterprise Connect? What do you expect to see there, and what are you most interested to learn about? 

Let’s talk about the opportunities you have for AI and WebRTC communications in the contact center! I’d be happy to meet up with you on Wednesday while I’m there. Just book a slot on my calendar. 

When you’re ready to explore the intersection of WebRTC video and audio, click to call applications, AI in the contact center, and customer experience, don’t hesitate to reach out to our team of experts at WebRTC.ventures! We’d be happy to help you assess, build, test, deploy and manage your solutions. Contact us today!