700-105 PDF obtain - Cisco Midsize Collaboration Solutions for Account Managers Updated: 2023

October 30, 2023, 12:28 PM EDT

‘We feel like that’s why customers come to us. We understand the network, we understand how packets flow through the network, we understand how that can get more optimized. We understand how people can have a delightful experience and not have to worry about bad internet connectivity, high packet loss … all of those kinds of problems disappear,’ says Cisco EVP and GM Jeetu Patel.

Cisco Systems’ Webex platform, a market leader in the collaboration space, has been infused with AI in ways that the company says makes the platform smarter and more intuitive – not to mention more effective thanks to technology that can identify and remedy unstable video connections and choppy audio.

The tech giant last week at its WebexOne 2023 event unveiled a smattering of new Webex devices, features and upgrades. Included was new Real-Time Media Models (RMM) designed to pick up on visual and audible cues, such as gestures, or an individual walking out of the room during a meeting. The job of the AI-based RMMs is to enhance audio and video quality by using these actions and object recognition as context. Cisco’s new AI Codec in Webex, also based on generative AI technology, works to solve the challenge of audio quality, regardless of network conditions, by allowing for transmission redundancy to recover from network packet loss. Cisco’s Webex AI Assistant also now includes a new set of features that pull in RMM and Large Language Models (LLMs) to Boost communication and collaboration for both hybrid workers and contact center agents. And that’s just to name a few of the innovations that were showcased.

The main takeaway for partners is that the Webex platform, unlike many competing collaboration platforms on the market, is leveraging the strength the tech giant has in networking, security and observability. It’s giving Webex differentiation in the crowded market, said Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration.

But speaking of the competition, Cisco knows that customers have made investments in third-party platforms. In this new wave of collaboration buying that’s coming on the heels of three-year technology refresh cycles, the company would rather partner with a competitor – something that Cisco is already doing by pairing its hardware with Microsoft Teams environments.

Patel sat down with CRN to talk about Cisco Collaboration’s AI strategy, working with the competition, and how the tech giant’s networking and security expertise are being applied to the Webex platform.

Here are excerpts from the conversation.

At its annual WebexOne conference today, enterprise software and networking giant Cisco announced an ambitious new AI strategy aimed at improving communication and collaboration through its Webex video conferencing platform, making it an even more robust rival to Zoom, Microsoft Teams, and Google Meet (most of which have also embraced new AI features in exact months).

WebX’s strategy combines real-time intelligence across text, audio, and video to solve everyday challenges that organizations face with their video conferences, building upon an initial set of AI updates to Webex in March, including meeting summarization. 

Further into AI

With its new updates announced at Webex One, Cisco is going dramatically further with new Real-Time Media Models (RMM) to enhance the audio and video experience, as well as an enhanced AI assistant for suggested responses and summary. 

The overall goal is to further enable Webex for the new normal of the hybrid workspace. The Cisco Webex portfolio includes both in-room video conferencing hardware as well as software that can run on regular desktop and mobile systems. 

“We’re spending our engineering resources where we are really good,  which is audio intelligence, video intelligence and language intelligence,” Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager, Security and Collaboration, told VentureBeat.

Patel said that the goal is to really pull Cisco’s engineering resources together so that people can take out the friction and not feel the distance or not feel the language barriers when they’re communicating with each other.

Webex AI Assistant to provide automated support across platforms

A core element of the updates is the new Webex AI Assistant.

Patel explained that the Webex AI Assistant works across the entirety of the Webex portfolio of services. The assistant will provide automated support such as tone modification when writing messages, suggested responses to received messages, and meeting summaries for those who join late or miss calls. 

“Imagine if I came in 10 minutes late to a meeting, wouldn’t it be nice if rather than interrupting the meeting and asking everyone to say what transpired in this meeting thus far if the system knows, I showed up 10 minutes late and it just gives me a summary of the meeting,” Patel said.

The AI assistant feature is similar to those announced by Zoom, Otter.ai, and timeOS. In fact, the integration of AI into video collaboration tools has been an ongoing trend in 2023 with rivals adding their own capabilities.Microsoft Teams integrates an AI copilot and Google has integrated its Workspace AI with Meet.

While Cisco had already been offering meeting summaries in Webex, Patel explained they are enhancing them to incorporate additional contextual details using AI. He noted that sometimes there is nuance with nonverbal communication cues that get missed out with a traditional approach to meeting summaries. Cisco is aiming to capture some of that nuance in a variety of ways.

“We have a capability with video intelligence that can tell you if I step away from a desk, that ‘this person has stepped away and we’ll be right back’,” Patel said. 

He added that the enhanced summarization will be able to take that presence awareness and merge it with the transcript. This will allow summaries to note things like a participant stepping away or detect the tone of a conversation.

AI-Powered audio and video enhancements for challenging networks

Cisco is also rolling out new AI-powered audio and video capabilities designed to Boost communication quality even on low bandwidth, high latency networks. 

Patel explained that Cisco has completely reimagined its audio and video codecs using AI to be up to 16 times more efficient. This will allow high-definition audio and video on as little as 1/16 the bandwidth normally required.It will also enable capabilities like reconstructing dropped packets through generative AI.

“This is completely revolutionary by the way because not only does it change the quality of audio in high latency, high packet loss environments, it also reduces your cost of storage for the audio file,” Patel said.”If you think about a contact center application, every single call gets recorded and stored, you will not be able to store for a fraction of the cost because you actually need less storage.”

Looking forward, Patel emphasized that Cisco will continue to expand the AI-powered capabilities of Webex.

“You should expect us to continue to keep enhancing AI use cases so that every user has an assistant that can actually do things that they were not able to do in the past by themselves, and the communication for them becomes easier and the distance gets to zero,” he said.

There's no question that GenAI applications are starting to make a big impact on enterprise applications. Until recently, most of the attention given to GenAI in the business context was focused on text-based Large Language Models (LLMs) and chatbot-style applications that leverage them. However, at their exact Webex One conference, Cisco highlighted how foundational models and other GenAI tools can also profoundly enhance communications and collaboration.

Cisco announced several enhancements related to AI integration across its Webex suite. Many of these involve adding an extra layer of intelligence to Webex, while others focus on audio and video quality improvements. Moreover, Cisco continued its history of collaborating with Apple by introducing enhanced support for Apple devices, including the Apple TV and Apple Watch.

Like its competitors, Cisco initially introduced AI-powered features in Webex, such as automatic transcription and meeting summarization, but the new capabilities they announced demonstrate a new level of sophistication. These updates offer insights into how GenAI-based tools are expected to evolve.

Undoubtedly, the most intriguing development is the introduction of a new type of model that Cisco is calling the Real-Time Media Models (RMMs). These are based on audio and video data. Cisco claims that RMMs can furnish supplemental data about a meeting derived from visual cues, gestures, body language, message tone, and more.

While text-based meeting transcriptions and summaries are valuable, they often miss the subtle yet crucial nuances in how things are said and how participants respond. These nuances can significantly influence how certain ideas or messages are interpreted and conveyed. Cisco believes it can enrich its existing AI-powered meeting notes by integrating RMM data with its current LLM-based text content.

In theory, these sound impressive, but it will take some real-world usage to see how effective they are in capturing and integrating this information into meeting summaries. Regardless, it's an interesting example of how Webex continues to innovate while trying to stay a step ahead of its competition – not an easy task in a market that moves as quickly as video collaboration.

One of the other benefits of leveraging RMMs, according to Cisco, is the ability to create meeting summarization in video form. This allows people to get a movie preview style summary of a meeting, allowing people to easily watch what happened instead of simply reading about it. Again, the proof will be in the pudding, but it's unquestionably a great concept.

RMMs also enhance the Webex AI Assistant. Similar to other digital assistant features, the Webex version is geared to furnish intelligent responses to user queries inputted into a chat-style interface. For instance, users can prompt the Webex AI Assistant to summarize meetings they missed or underscore remarks from specific attendees, like whatever your boss said. The integration of RMM data differentiates this feature by providing deeper context. By analyzing the video feed, future Webex AI Assistant iterations could potentially auto-generate summaries of segments a participant missed, ensuring continuity.

The Webex AI Assistant can also suggest responses for customer service agents, helping them Boost their responses, and can even make suggestions in the tone of how things are (or should be) said. Additionally, Cisco mentioned their intent to support multiple LLMs alongside their RMMs within the Webex AI Assistant. Essentially, they could interchange the GenAI engine, optimizing it per customer or employee type.

The final piece of the new Webex AI strategy is an enhanced set of AI audio and video codecs. These tools can dramatically minimize data requirements and, through GenAI, can even recover lost packets, ensuring uninterrupted audio. On the video front, employing super-resolution techniques, akin to those used in AI-image enhancement, allows Webex to upgrade video quality and resolution over subpar connections. The end product should be a smoother, glitch-free meeting experience.

The evolution of meeting and collaboration tools like Webex and its competitors continues at a breakneck pace. It won't be long before rivals like Microsoft, Zoom and Google start to catch up. Still, it's great to see how Cisco is pushing forward the integration of GenAI into Webex and providing an intriguing view into how these technologies continue to evolve.

Bob O'Donnell is the founder and chief analyst of TECHnalysis Research, LLC a technology consulting firm that provides strategic consulting and market research services to the technology industry and professional financial community. You can follow him on Twitter @bobodtech

George N. Root III began writing professionally in 1985. His publishing credits include a weekly column in the "Lockport Union Sun and Journal" along with the "Spectrum," the "Niagara Falls Gazette," "Tonawanda News," "Watertown Daily News" and the "Buffalo News." Root has a Bachelor of Arts in English from the State University of New York, Buffalo.

October 26, 2023, 12:00 PM EDT

From new, easier-to-implement room systems, to contact center agent wellness features, here’s a look at the AI-powered updates that the tech giant launched this week during WebexOne 2023.

Hybrid work is here to stay, which is why Cisco Systems keeps upping the ante within its collaboration business. The tech giant has spent the last several years strengthening its popular Webex platform and all its offerings, such as Meetings, Calling, and Contact Center. Cisco’s cloud-based collaboration services are among the most popular in the crowded market and the company wants to continue its reign with the help of its channel partners.

Cisco this week during its annual WebexOne event came armed with a solidified AI strategy that the company is making good on with a smattering of generative AI-based features and functionality that’s being baked into the Webex platform. The company highlighted several new device options, promoted its Apple partnership, and even discussed how teamwork and interoperability with third-party collaboration providers, such as Microsoft Teams, is the way forward. With so much at stake as customers come up on their renewal cycles following the pandemic’s panic buying, Jeetu Patel, Cisco’s executive vice president and general manager of security and collaboration, called this year’s WebexOne the “most consequential.”

CRN was on the ground at Cisco’s 2023 WebexOne event in Anaheim and rounded up the latest collaboration products and AI features that the tech giant unleashed this week. Here’s how Cisco is bolstering the Webex platform.

There’s no question that Generative AI (GenAI) applications are starting to make a big impact on enterprise applications. Until recently, however, the vast majority of the attention being given to GenAI applications for business has had to do with text-based Large Language Models (LLMs) and chatbot-style applications that leverage them. At its exact Webex One conference, Cisco (NASDAQ:CSCO) made a point to emphasize how foundation models and other GenAI tools can make a powerful impact in communications and collaboration as well.

The company made several announcements regarding AI integration into its entire suite of Webex tools at the event. Most involve an additional level of intelligence being integrated into Webex, but some cover audio and video quality improvements. In addition, Cisco added to its history of Apple (AAPL) collaborations by unveiling additional support for Apple devices, including Apple TV and Apple Watch.

Of course, like all its competitors, Cisco first started offering AI-powered features in Webex, such as automatic transcription and meeting summarization, a while back. The capabilities the company just announced, however, show a new level of sophistication and provide an interesting pointer towards how GenAI-based tools are likely to evolve.

Undoubtedly the most intriguing is the introduction of a new type of foundation model Cisco is calling Real-Time Media Models (RMMs) that are based on audio and video data. According to Cisco, these RMMs can provide supplemental data and information about a meeting from things like visual cues, gestures, body language, message tone and more. As useful as text-based meeting transcriptions and summaries can be, they don’t always capture the subtle but important nuances in how things are said and how people react, both of which can have a huge influence on how certain ideas or messages are understood and conveyed. It’s this kind of information that Cisco believes it can bring to its existing AI-powered meeting notes by combining the RMM data with its existing LLM-based text contact.

In theory, these kinds of GenAI-enabled capabilities sound quite impressive, but it will take some real-world usage to see how effective they are in capturing and integrating this information into meeting summaries. Regardless, it’s an interesting example of how Webex continues to innovate in unique ways that help it stay a step ahead of its competition - not an easy task in a market that moves as quickly as video collaboration.

One of the other benefits of leveraging RMMs, according to Cisco, is the ability to create meeting summarization tools in video form. This allows people to get a movie preview-style summary of a meeting, allowing people to easily watch what happened instead of simply reading about it. Again, the proof will be in the pudding, but it’s unquestionably a great concept.

RMMs also play a role in the Webex AI Assistant. Like other digital assistant-type features, the Webex version is designed to provide intelligent responses to queries that users can type into chat-style interface. For example, people can ask the Webex AI Assistant to summarize the results of all the meetings they have missed on a PTO day or highlight the comments their boss made during a particular meeting, and so on. The difference versus similar types of features the company has introduced in the past is that the integration of the RMM data should provide the kind of additional context referred to earlier. Leveraging the RMM video data, future versions of the Webex AI Assistant might also be able to do things like automatically generate summaries of the portions of a meeting a person may have been missed because of running late or having to step out for a bit. The idea is that by analyzing the video feed, Webex will be able to determine when a person was there or wasn’t, and then fill in those missing time gaps in a seamless manner.

The Webex AI Assistant also has the ability to provide suggested answers for customer service agents, helping them Boost their responses, and can even make suggestions in the tone of how things are (or should be) said. One of the more intriguing aspects of Cisco’s implementation is that it said it intends to offer the ability to support several different LLMs in addition to its own RMMs in the Webex AI Assistant. In other words, it can essentially swap out the GenAI engine powering the experience in order to pick the best choice for different customers, different types of employees, etc. Again, this idea of model swapping is an intriguing concept that I expect to become more common in other types of GenAI-powered applications and services, so it’s very interesting to see Cisco jumping into this new realm so early.

The final piece of the new Webex AI strategy is an enhanced set of AI audio and video codecs that are designed to Boost the audio and video quality on video calls where the bandwidth is limited. First, these new tools can reduce the amount of data needed down to 1/16^th of what it currently is, making it easier to work in low-bandwidth environments. In addition, by leveraging GenAI, these new codecs can do things like help recreate lost packets to help ensure a smooth audio signal. On the video side, by utilizing super-resolution technologies like what’s been deployed for AI-generated image enhancement, Webex can upscale the quality and video resolution of a video signal over a low-quality or low-bandwidth connection. The net result is a smoother, more seamless experience that makes everyone in the meeting look and sound better, and avoids the annoying glitches that can sometimes occur in these types of situations.

The evolution of meeting and collaboration tools like Webex and its competitors continues at a breakneck pace, and while Cisco has once again jumped ahead in terms of innovative capabilities, it may not be long before companies like Microsoft (MSFT), Zoom (ZM) and Google (GOOG, GOOGL) start to catch up. Still, it’s great to see how Cisco is pushing forward the integration of GenAI into its Webex suite and providing an intriguing view into how these technologies continue to evolve.

Disclaimer: Some of the author's clients are vendors in the tech industry.

Disclosure: None.

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Editor's Note: The summary bullets for this article were chosen by Seeking Alpha editors.