COMMENT COMMENT
The UC Industry is More Important than Ever
UC
When Chat GPT and Generative AI first came in, I must confess that I thought it was another flash in the pan. Having experienced the hype cycle of Blockchain and 5G in previous years, all the hallmarks were there. An interesting technology 4 specific use cases 4 , predictions about taking over the world 4 . With the benefit of hindsight, the difference is that none of the journalists covering Blockchain confessed to falling in love with it, and 5G never threatened to take my job. But a touch of scepticism is necessary in this industry. Nevertheless, we are a few years on, and it's safe to say that whether it’s with ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Gemini, or any other generative AI provider, we are stuck with this technology for the long haul. With that acceptance comes more scrutiny, though questions are being asked about the energy it takes to create ‘AI slop’, the efficacy of using artificial intelligence to summarise content that is behind a paywall, and the impact that this technology has on the human race. While most of those questions are above my pay grade, and I'd bet no one reading this would want to answer them, as it relates to the unified communications industry, AI may breathe new life and new opportunities into an industry that, let's
face it, has been pretty repetitive since the pandemic. The average organisation might be looking to Microsoft, Zoom, Salesforce, and any other provider that claims they can revolutionise business with agents. The fact of the matter is that the underlying network will have the biggest impact on whether the implementation of AI is a success. Agents will be required to search multiple data siloes for the specific answer to any question asked, no matter how badly it’s phrased. Research shows that this needs to be done within a second for the user to be satisfied, rising to four to six seconds for larger AI models. As we move past simple consumer-facing chatbots in the corners of webpages, and businesses adopt agents for people on both sides of the organisation, network speeds and reliability will be the most important consideration. That won’t be news to a lot of you, but the technology industry does have a habit of getting carried away with what could be done rather than how to get the best solution. As always, let me know what you think of the magazine! We’ll be back with another issue in July, just before a short break for summer! n
Elliot Mulley-Goodbarne Editor
Coming Soon
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