How will AI impact the UC industry?

Artificial Intelligence (AI) seems to be in the news every day at present but there have been some notable stories:

• The so called ‘AI godfather’ Geoffrey Hinton quit Google, warning of the “dangers of AI”.
• Elon Musk and others have called for a pause on AI, citing “profound risks to society”.
• Sir Patrick Vallance said AI “could be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution”.
• Paul Christiano, ChatGPT creator, says there’s a 50% chance that AI will end in “doom”.

In fact, the non-profit Future of Life Institute, backed by Musk and others, stated that AI developers are “locked in an out-of-control race to develop and deploy ever more powerful digital minds that no one – not even their creators – can understand, predict or reliably control.”

It would be easy to conclude that AI poses a risk to life as we know it, but is it really all doom and gloom? In this blog we investigate the risks and opportunities that AI presents for the UC industry.

How is AI being used by leading UC Vendors at the moment?

AI is already a feature of our industry, with most vendors using it in one way or another to improve productivity, collaboration, and customer service.

As we’re exploring AI, we thought it would be apt to try it out! So, we asked Chat GPT how AI is being applied by leading UC vendors in our portfolio. Here’s an excerpt of what it said:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Intelligent Assistants: Vendors such as Logitech, Poly, and EPOS are using NLP to power intelligent assistants that can respond to voice commands and provide information or perform tasks. These assistants can also transcribe conversations in real-time, which can be useful for notetaking, collaboration, and accessibility.
• Speech Analytics: Vendors such as Zoom and Five9 are using speech analytics to analyse customer conversations and provide insights into customer behaviour, preferences, and sentiment. This can help improve customer service, identify trends, and optimize business processes.
• Video Analytics: Vendors such as Pexip are using video analytics to analyse meeting behaviour, such as how much time is spent talking versus listening and provide insights into meeting effectiveness. This can help improve meeting productivity and collaboration.
• Predictive Analytics: Vendors such as RingCentral are using predictive analytics to anticipate user needs and provide personalized recommendations. This can help improve user productivity and satisfaction.
• Automated Meeting Scheduling: Vendors such as Zoom are using AI to automatically schedule meetings based on user preferences, availability, and context. This can help save time and streamline meeting logistics.
• Noise Cancellation: Vendors such as AudioCodes [and EPOS] are using AI to remove background noise during calls and meetings, improving audio quality and reducing distractions.

This list is, of course, not exhaustive, but it clearly demonstrates the breadth of AI use by UC vendors – a trend that is set to continue.

What are the future opportunities and risks for the UC industry with AI?

It is not surprising as AI represents many opportunities, such as: improved productivity, enhanced collaboration, and the potential for better customer service.

AI is set to revolutionise CX (Customer Experience). AI can automate repetitive tasks, provide a reliable customer experience, improve the agent experience, and shorten the time required to resolve an issue. Not only that, but it will also provide greater depth of analytics and reporting to the contact centre owners. AI is a solution to provide augmentation to people, not to replace them. Its uses are limited by those providing the service so while its benefits are considerable, it is also controllable.

But, with opportunity, comes risk. For our industry, there are risks with using AI such as miscommunication due to AI-powered language translations; or reduced customer satisfaction due to an over reliance on AI that is unable to handle complex customer enquiries or situations. However, we believe that the main risks for our industry centre around:

• Privacy and Security,
• Bias and Discrimination,
• Job Losses.

Here we investigate these risks:

Privacy and Security

The use of AI in UC might raise concerns about data privacy and security, particularly around the collection, storage, and processing of sensitive data. AI can process and store large amounts of personal data, including call logs, transcripts, and voice recordings. There is a risk that this data can be compromised by cybercriminals, leading to breaches of privacy. These criminals may in fact use AI to impersonate legitimate employees or customers to try to trick individuals into providing sensitive information, such as login credentials or financial details.

We recently explored data protection in secure video conferencing – check out our blog.

Bias and Discrimination

AI algorithms can be biased and discriminatory, particularly around race, gender, and age, which can lead to unfair treatment and decision-making. This can be seen by the issues with Amazon’s facial recognition technology ‘Rekognition’. The Washington Post reported at the time that Rekognition falsely matched 28 members of Congress with mugshots of individuals who had been arrested! Nearly 40% of Rekognition’s false matches in the test were of people of colour, even though they only make up 20% of Congress membership.

Job Losses

As referenced earlier in this blog, Sir Patrick Vallance (the government’s former chief scientific adviser) said that AI “could be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution”, and he claimed that AI is likely to lead to the erasure of [some] jobs humans do.

This is, sadly, already the case with education companies trading on the London and New York stock exchanges seeing hundreds of millions wiped from their valuations, and crediting this to the evolution of ChatGPT. London education giant Pearson’s stock closed down 15%.

The question of whether this will be mirrored in our industry is not as clear cut. AI-powered contact centre solutions such as from Five9 and Voca from AudioCodes, are likely to bring about some changes in the roles and responsibilities of human agents.

On the one hand, AI-powered solutions can automate routine tasks such as call routing and basic customer inquiries, which may lead to a reduction in the number of human agents needed to handle these tasks. This could result in some job losses in contact centres, particularly in areas with high labour costs.

These solutions can, however, improve the efficiency and effectiveness of human agents by providing them with real-time data and insights about customer needs and preferences. This can enable agents to provide more personalised and effective customer service, which can lead to increased customer satisfaction and loyalty.

It’s also worth considering the deployment of AI-powered solutions will likely create new job opportunities across the industry, such as data analysts or AI specialists.

Summary

Sir Patrick Vallance said that AI ‘could be as transformative as the Industrial Revolution’. The Industrial Revolution in the UK saw huge changes with developments in machinery and manufacturing as well as the introduction of trains and cars. The latter, for example, caused both excitement and fear. There was concern around job losses, and safety – and these fears were not unfounded. After all, cars in the wrong hands can be lethal. Just as AI in the wrong hands could be catastrophic.

But, popularity and availability of cars rose at an exponential rate, and in doing so, created a new industry which is now worth trillions worldwide.

We predict that AI is likely to follow much the same path as the evolution of the motorcar. Jobs, opportunities and technologies that don’t exist today, will be created as a result of the Artificial Intelligence revolution.

It’s not wrong for people to be sceptical or even fearful of this new technology and it cannot be disputed that regulation needs to come into play…

… but that doesn’t negate the fact that AI represents a huge opportunity for the UC industry. New technology is coming to the market, and huge strides are already being made in evolving markets such as contact centres.

The AI wheels are already in motion and show no signs of slowing down.

To find out more about opportunities surrounding AI, Contact Centres., product developments contact our team on 01635 225 000 or email sales@nuvias-uc.com.

– Ends –

References

AI could have as big an impact on jobs as industrial revolution, Sir Patrick Vallance warns https://news.sky.com/story/ai-could-have-as-big-an-impact-on-jobs-as-industrial-revolution-sir-patrick-vallance-warns-12872266

AI ‘could be as transformative as Industrial Revolution’ AI ‘could be as transformative as Industrial Revolution’ | Artificial intelligence (AI) | The Guardian

AI is fuelling a rise in online voice scams – with just three seconds of audio required to clone a person’s voice, study warns https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12042501/AI-fuelling-rise-online-voice-scams-study-warns.html

AI is fuelling a rise in online voice scams – with just three seconds of audio required to clone a person’s voice, study warns https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12042501/AI-fuelling-rise-online-voice-scams-study-warns.html

Amazon’s facial-recognition tool misidentified 28 lawmakers as people arrested for a crime, study finds https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2018/07/26/amazons-facial-recognition-tool-misidentified-lawmakers-people-arrested-crime-study-finds/

Data Protection Day: Secure Video Conferencing Data Protection Day: Secure Video Conferencing – Nuvias-UC

Elon Musk and Others Call for Pause on A.I., Citing ‘Profound Risks to Society’ https://www.nytimes.com/2023/03/29/technology/ai-artificial-intelligence-musk-risks.html

Pearson shares fall after US digital learning rival says AI hurting its business https://www.theguardian.com/business/2023/may/02/pearson-shares-fall-after-us-rival-says-ai-hurting-its-business