Gauging the current impact of Artificial Intelligence
This month, comms industry thought leaders share insights into current demand for Artificial Intelligence solutions, how they are adopting AI within their own organisations and the extent to which this exciting technology will likely reshape the channel landscape.
GEOFF BARLOW TECHNOLOGY PRACTICE LEAD – STRATEGY, NODE4
AI will impact the MSP industry by remediating issues faster, automatically running predictive fault analysis, detecting security issues and spotting anomalies that humans may miss. Some MSPs may eventually offer low price-points for support services as they will be relying on AI to drive their cost model down, or will reduce costs by utilising AI for previously human roles. Future technologies will need to incorporate AI or risk getting left behind. We use AI internally for code generation, meeting note summaries and sales enablement. For our customers we see our role as an advocate for the proper usage of AI from a tech implementation and a skills perspective. To perform effective predictive analysis from AI-generated content, data analysts, scientists and engineers are required. This is an area where skilled professionals can add massive value. However, there is a growing skills gap that will continue to be a challenge for many businesses.
NICK TIDDY HEAD OF SALES AT ZEN’S PARTNER DIVISION
From conversations we’re having with our channel partners, AI is not widely adopted and is still an emerging technology. Everyone is watching it closely and many are experimenting with it for content generation, but it’s not yet elevated to strategic priority level from a product perspective. Our partners’ focus is on the many other opportunities they can leverage while the potential of AI unfolds. We’ve deployed an AI team to explore the possibilities, initially looking at introducing process efficiency gains internally. We are exploring its use across the business from marketing and sales through to our development teams with a view to sharing our learnings with our partners. This way we can advise our channel partners on their own journeys through AI when the time is right.
HILARY OLIVER CHIEF MARKETING AND EXPERIENCE OFFICER, TOLLRING
AI-powered analytics is the future. Service providers and resellers should start to familiarise themselves with the value and benefits of AI as soon as possible while also up-skilling to understand its impact on security and compliance. We’ve been using machine learning in our toll fraud protection products for many years, but following recent advances in the technology we expect AI to play a part in our entire product portfolio. For example, in January 2024 we will launch an AI-powered call recording application that delivers insights by identifying keywords and topics, eliminating the manual review of every call. This will impact customer experience and democratise and commoditise the technology.
JAMES ROUTLEDGE SALES DIRECTOR, GLOBAL 4
We must be mindful not to confuse AI and Intelligent Automation. AI systems learn from consistent data and adjusts its behaviour based on this. A speech analytical tool that delivers the same output based upon similar inputs is not AI, it is an intelligent tool that automates a process. Aside from an occasional Chat GPT shortcut our industry is only beginning to understand where AI could make a difference. I see the biggest opportunity around analytics. By learning and evolving faster than the human mind could comprehend, adjusting individual tolerance parameters and presenting data in a forever improving way, AI facilitates more agile decision making and supports personnel to enhance the customer experience. We aren’t there yet, however in years to come we will be.
MARTIN TAYLOR CO-FOUNDER AND DEPUTY CEO, CONTENT GURU
Customer experience and contact centres are ground zero for AI as the first true business use case where it can be put to work for immediate benefit. It is up to vendors and those within the sales channel to take the lead and demonstrate the value of AI and present clients with tangible steps on how it can be delivered. Much of the excitement generated by the initial buzz of AI was focused on solutions which would interact with the public directly. In fact, a middle ground is needed. There are enormous business benefits to enabling super efficient workers - 35 per cent productivity gains are achievable by applying Generative AI to current cloud contact centre technologies to automate in-call transcription and post-call summarisation – a safer version of AI, where agents remain in control, but are much more efficient.
SCOTT MORDUE HEAD OF MARKETING, AVOIRA
We continue to assess AI products and will deploy them if we can see a benefit. It is not something customers are asking about, and we tend to have to tell our customers about the AI products in our portfolio. We frequently discuss with clients how AI might enhance their solutions. There are huge opportunities in healthcare, transport, financial services, retail and more. Harnessing data and gaining insight empowers companies to innovate and provide compelling solutions. AI enables us to learn and act from that insight. But AI poses a slight threat around misuse and poor regulation. There needs to be freedom to innovate while ensuring there’s trust. Technical sales will also need to boost skills around building AI models and how the AI works.
MARK HOLLMAN VP, PARTNER DEVELOPMENT AND SUCCESS, COLT
We interviewed 755 IT leaders for our Digital Infrastructure report and found 91 per cent intend to adopt AI in some form, up from 33 per cent in December 2022. Of those that are already using AI, usage was most popular when used as part of enterprises’ digital infrastructure management (45 per cent) in fraud detection (45 per cent) and across HR (45 per cent). For the past few years we’ve used AI to help us get closer to customers. We use an AI-powered recommendation engine, built on Microsoft’s Azure platform, to analyse high volumes of data. This helps us to identify patterns and make accurate predictions, and it means we can engage with our customers at the right point in their buying process.
STEVE BARCLAY, MANAGING DIRECTOR, EVE NETWORKS
AI features heavily in eve’s roadmap. For example, we’re launching an AI powered recording studio that generates lifelike voice recordings. We’re also exploring how we can use AI in eve’s support process to reduce the need for human intervention and decrease pressure in the supply chain. This can lower our resellers' costs and improve customer experience. AI is also changing the B2B buying process. There’s an opportunity for smart resellers to stand out and win more sales by understanding how their customers use AI to research and buy. Smart service providers will add value by showing their resellers just how to do that. AI is a trending technology, therefore we’re not experiencing the full potential just yet.
JEFF GREEN CEO, ELISHA TELECOM
AI is a hot topic and we receive many questions on it from direct customers and resellers. A common one is whether AI-powered insight platforms must be delivered by the same vendor as the customer’s comms platform. They don’t. With the right transcription and sentiment analysis engines content from anywhere can be interrogated. Plus, the learning curve is minimal as applications are intuitive. So, don’t worry if it’s new ground for your team, any decent vendor will offer robust training to ensure pitches are delivered confidently. But partners aren’t always asking about customer deliverables. Just like in end customer businesses, AI has massive potential to reduce support and technical teams’ workloads. We use AI internally via tech support chatbots. Now, engineers rarely tackle simple tasks, and partners want to mirror this in their organisations too.
MATT MIMO CEO, 7ARDIS
For the channel, the greatest risk AI poses is not adopting it, and the easiest entry point into AI is chatbots. AI does require new skills, so work with a confident provider that already controls its own ML and DL. We receive a lot of questions around our AI-powered Mobile Coverage Map and video surveillance solutions. For example, scanning workers’ PPE on entry and rejecting those who aren’t up-to-code. One of AI’s greatest advantages is how scalable it is across similar situations and industries, like applying the same technology to recognise PPE in healthcare settings or training it on facial expressions to record behaviour and sentiment, which we’re exploring.