Gartner, a global research firm, projects cost savings through the implementation of conversational AI technology. According to a 2022 forecast, conversational AI will reduce contact center agent labor costs by $80 billion in 2026 – $240 billion by 2031. Gartner also predicts that in 2031, conversational AI chatbots and virtual assistants will handle 30% of interactions that would have otherwise been handled by a human agent, up from just two percent in 2022.
As the industry prepares for the transformative potential of conversational AI, major players are already taking steps to make this vision a reality.
Bandwidth Inc., a global enterprise cloud communications company, recently announced a partnership with Google and Cognigy to launch AIBridge, which enables enterprises to easily deploy voice-based artificial intelligence tools in front of their contact centers – resolving calls faster and more efficiently in the communications cloud.
AIBridge is the newest in a series of pre-built integrations available with Bandwidth Maestro, the company's next-generation enterprise cloud communications platform, which is now available. Bandwidth Maestro offers a unique solution to a pivotal challenge faced by IT teams: seamless integration of top-tier, real-time voice applications into their unified communications, cloud contact center, AI and machine learning systems. In contrast to other vendors' closed ecosystems, Maestro stands out in the Communications Platform as a Service sector with its open, platform-agnostic approach.
As for AIBridge, it empowers enterprises to expedite the resolution of customer issues, leading to enhanced overall customer experiences and heightened agent satisfaction, all while curbing operational costs in the contact center. Through AIBridge, incoming calls directed to an enterprise's contact center can initially be directed to an AI-driven virtual agent, leveraging a pre-established integration with Bandwidth's Maestro platform.
In cases where the caller's concern can be effectively addressed through conversational AI – such as tasks like replacing a lost credit card or rescheduling a flight – the interaction can take place within the communications cloud, completely bypassing the need to connect with the contact center or a live agent.
Additionally, enterprises can maintain uninterrupted customer service accessibility through the deployment of virtual agents and self-service options via AIBridge, even during periods when live agents are unavailable. Also, enterprises can orchestrate complex call flows using Bandwidth Visual Builder, a software-based, low code/no code drag-and-drop call flow designer.
"Bandwidth AIBridge enables enterprises to make the transition from traditional IVR technologies to full-service conversational AI bot platforms and move them in front of the contact center to operate 24/7/365," said John Bell, Bandwidth's Chief Product Officer. "It gets even better, too. Using Bandwidth Visual Builder, there's no software coding necessary to compose and connect complex call flows for any contact center use case."
As stated previously, the initial integrations available for AIBridge feature Cognigy and Google Cloud's Dialogflow.
Cognigy.AI, developed by Cognigy, serves as an enterprise-level conversational AI platform that delivers top-tier conversational and generative AI solutions to contact centers. Its primary goals are to automate customer journeys, enhance interactions between customers and agents and boost the rate of first-call issue resolution.
Dialogflow, an integral component of Google Cloud's Contact Center AI solution, lets enterprise clients swiftly create advanced virtual agents capable of transitioning between topics, handling supplementary questions and operating across various channels around the clock, thereby minimizing the need for live agent interventions.
"Bandwidth Maestro is truly an innovative enterprise-class voice platform that, when paired with Cognigy.AI, will make conversational and generative AI more accessible and manageable enabling accelerated customer service transformation," said Hardy Myers, Senior Vice President of Business Development and Strategy at Cognigy.
These integrations are already pre-configured within the Bandwidth Maestro platform, streamlining the development process for enterprise IT teams and reducing the timeline from months to mere hours.
More integrations are in the pipeline for upcoming releases.
Edited by
Alex Passett
