Category: Communicate

Communicate covers the issues enterprises face in the selection, implementation, and management of business communication and collaboration technology, software, and services.

Voice Security in Customer Engagement Has Missing Pieces

by orumohiuddin, posted in Communicate, Secure
A professional portrait of a woman with long black hair, wearing a patterned blouse and a pearl necklace, against a plain background.
O. Mohiuddin

Summary Bullets:

• AI is driving up voice traffic while also making voice more vulnerable, so voice security needs urgent attention.

• The building blocks are in place, but solutions are fragmented. Voice security needs to be integrated on the carrier network level and backed by strong verification at the business.

Voice security is of paramount importance today. Advances in AI are affecting voice in two ways. First, AI is improving the voice experience as it becomes more interactive, which is expected to increase overall voice traffic. Second, AI can be used to bypass security barriers, significantly raising the threat level. The threat landscape varies depending on the call type, recipients, and network routing (such as international borders); this blog focuses on voice security within customer engagement (particularly contact centers), predominantly in the US.

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nexfibre and Netomnia: Is Bigger Better for UK Fiber Competition?

by Brendan Swan, posted in Communicate
A professional headshot of a man smiling, wearing a dark suit with a light pink shirt, set against a neutral background.
B. Swan

Summary Bullets:

• The UK’s Competition and Market Authority released its interim findings on nexfibre’s proposed acquisition of Netomnia, in which it raised concerns that the acquisition could reduce wholesale competition.

• Deploying multiple overlapping networks have put smaller altnets under financial pressure, with consolidation seemingly the only way forward.

It’s been humorously said that the UK has roughly one altnet for every postcode – well over 100 to be exact – each armed with big ambitions and a digger. It’s therefore no surprise that consolidation is now firmly on the agenda, with M&A activity set to reshape the alternative network landscape. The market that emerges could look very different from the landscape we see today. With the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) releasing its interim findings on nexfibre’s proposed acquisition of Netomnia, raising concerns that the deal could reduce wholesale competition, particularly where the two networks overlap. Yet consolidation could create a larger stronger challenger to take on BT’s Openreach. Though this raises the broader question: Does the UK need more fiber networks, or fewer but stronger networks capable of competing at scale with Openreach?

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Google is Keeping Workspace on the Cutting Edge

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Big Data, Communicate
A close-up portrait of a smiling man wearing glasses, with a neutral background.
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Three voice-activated features coming to Google Workspace reflect a broader trend of AI becoming incorporated into everyday workflows.

• The features also mirror how vendors are opening their team collaboration platforms to support the multi-platform environment in which their users operate.

Google recently announced three voice-activated AI features coming soon to Google Workspace. ‘Gmail Live’ lets users ask conversational questions to retrieve information from their Gmail inbox such as “What’s my flight’s gate number?”. Users can talk to ‘Keep Live’ to capture ideas that cross their mind and turn them into organized, actionable notes. With ‘Docs Live’ users can engage in real-time conversation to create documents on the fly. Although Workspace users cannot avail themselves of the features quite yet, ‘Gmail Live’ and ‘Keep Live’ are available to Google AI subscribers on the Plus, Pro, and Ultra plans while ‘Docs Live’ is reserved for Pro and Ultra subscribers.

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Beyond the Hype: The Reality of CX Agentic Orchestration

by orumohiuddin, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate, Secure
A woman with long dark hair wearing a colorful patterned top and a pearl necklace, smiling softly at the camera.
Oru Mohiuddin

Summary Bullets:

• Agentic orchestration has been dominating vendor narratives as growing complexity in the CX space is driving the need for a sophisticated coordination system.

• CX agentic orchestration remains fragmented as there are still infrastructural gaps, and trust remains a major issue for customers.

Agentic orchestration has been increasingly occupying CX vendor narratives in recent years, so it is time to take a deep dive into what orchestration is and why it is becoming relevant. Simply put, orchestration is bringing people, workflows, and technology together to achieve an outcome. Depending on how far we stretch the concept, orchestration is not new, and even a deterministic call routing can be described as orchestration. The question is, what is new today and why is orchestration increasingly dominating vendor narratives?

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Salesforce Expands the Value of Slackbot with the Introduction of Slackforce Surfaces

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate
Close-up portrait of a smiling man wearing glasses.
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

• Slackforce Surfaces are front doors into data and context that enable users to grasp a deeper understanding of their business and make more informed decisions.

• Slackforce Surfaces represent the latest chapter in the renaissance of Slackbot, advancing Slack as a key part of the Salesforce organization.

Salesforce has deepened its investment in Slackbot, the AI-driven personal work agent built into Slack, with the debut of Slackforce Surfaces. The introduction will raise the utility of the Slack platform and further cement the starring role Slack has come to play at Salesforce.

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AI Changing the Commercial Model for Fiber Build

by Brendan Swan, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Communicate
B. Swan

Summary Bullets:

• Zayo will build 8,000 miles of new long-haul fiber across key AI corridors, with Nvidia becoming its anchor customer.

• Nvidia’s extends beyond GPUs and compute, with partnerships spanning the optical and networking ecosystem underpinning AI infrastructure.

Until now, the AI Infrastructure race has predominately been focused on GPUs, data centers and access to reliable power, yet beneath all three sits a less visible, but increasingly critical, layer – connectivity. As AI workloads become larger, more distributed and dependent on moving large volumes of data between locations, fiber is emerging as a fundamental component of the AI Stack. Zayo’s recent announcement to build 8,000 miles of new long-haul fiber across key AI corridors, backed by Nvidia as its anchor customer, could mark the new beginning of a new investment cycle for terrestrial networks. The bigger question is whether AI-related companies could become the anchor customer needed for the next generation of fiber investment?

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Zoom is Delivering Better CX by Combining Communications, AI, and Workflow into One Platform

by siowmeng, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate
S. Soh

Summary Bullets:

• Zoom CX is a credible option for enterprises looking to transform their customer engagement with omni-channel and AI capabilities.

• Working with a broader partner ecosystem is pivotal for Zoom to win in CX space since this involves workflows and different business applications.

Zoom is well-known for its conferencing solution, which is used extensively in modern workplace, but it has gone well-beyond conferencing in recent years. The core business of Zoom has been the enabler of conversations within the workplace. To go beyond communications, the company sees new opportunities by expanding its role to help enterprises automate workflows during and after conversations (i.e., meetings and phone conversations). This vastly enlarges the value Zoom can deliver to enterprise customers, especially with the application of AI. For example, AI can eliminate many manual tasks such as generating documents from meeting with summaries and next steps, or updating CRM records after a discussion within the sales team.

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AI Requires a Reinvention of the Modern Data Center

by Beatriz Valle, posted in Big Data, Cloud Enable, Communicate
B. Valle

Summary Bullets:

• AI is drastically changing the fabric of the traditional data center, prompting fundamental changes in design and architecture.

• The biggest challenge is that AI infrastructure requires simultaneous scaling across multiple constrained layers: electricity, cooling, networking, chips, facilities, capital, and operations.

The rise of AI workloads is pushing data centers through a major architectural shift: from relatively general-purpose, virtualized compute environments toward high-density, network-intensive AI infrastructure. For example, rack density is rising sharply, because traditional data centers were not designed for the power and thermal profiles of dense AI server clusters. This means power distribution, floor loading, cable management, and thermal design are becoming central architectural considerations. Power availability has now become a core design constraint. Energy availability is starting to influence where data centers are built, with land and power constraints pushing some infrastructure development into new or remote regions.

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More Than Minutes: Strategic Partnerships Are Transforming International Voice

by Brendan Swan, posted in Communicate
B. Swan

Summary Bullets:

• e& and Globe Telecom demonstrate how strategic partnerships are transforming international voice through stronger service quality, fraud prevention, and expanding global reach.

• The future of international voice will be defined by user experience and security through strategic partnerships, not the lowest termination rates.

Over recent years, international voice has been viewed as a legacy service, highly commoditized with declining traffic volumes and shrinking revenues. Beneath the surface, however, the market is undergoing significant transformation. Rather than competing solely on the lowest possible termination rates, international carriers are forming strategic partnerships to improve service quality, extend global coverage, and strengthen network resilience to combat the threat of fraud. The recent announcement between e& and Philippine Globe Telecom reflects the shift, demonstrating how collaboration is becoming a key competitive differentiator in the next phase of international voice. As the wholesale communications market continues to evolve, could these partnerships become the defining factor that separates market leaders from the rest?

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Zoom Has Upped the Ante in Supporting Sales Teams

by Gregg Willsky, posted in Cloud Enable, Communicate
G. Willsky

Summary Bullets:

  • The Zoom Revenue Accelerator updates combined with the pending acquisition of the Common Room platform will provide Zoom with complete coverage of the sales cycle.
  • Providing support for the sales process represents a ‘new frontier’ that vendors are exploring and one that should ripen quickly.

Zoom announced general availability of three updates to its Zoom Revenue Accelerator (ZRA) feature, which helps sales teams close deals by analyzing customer interactions using AI. The updates consist of ‘Sales Roleplay,’ which provides practice simulations of customer conversations; ‘Sales Assist,’ which includes real-time deal guidance to keep reps focused as they engage the customer; and ‘Ask ZRA,’ which allows both reps and managers to perform natural language queries on conversation data post-discussion with the customer.

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