COMMENT COMMENT
Hopefully this year won’t drag-on
AI was also a talking point throughout the Call and Contact Centre expo at the end of last year (page 20), where the pivotal question of replacing agents with machines was a major theme throughout the show. I found this to be a common occurrence throughout the year last year. There are obviously pros to installing artificial intelligence into your company, however it can let you down at times. This obsession may also be counter- productive. Owl Labs, for example, diagnosed AI anxiety in nearly 20% of the workforce as rumours and headlines continue to pop up detailing how ChatGPT is taking our jobs. I was fortunate enough to catch up with Owl Labs CEO Frank Weishaupt last month, to discuss how businesses are dealing with the demands of hybrid working, along with how he wishes he could have dialled into half the meetings he had earlier in his career. We also have a piece looking into the challenges in the Cloud marketplace (page 24), and I had a look at the Jabra Evolve2 65 Flex on page 48, an impressive start to a series of reviews we’ll be bringing you every month. I’m off to pack for Barcelona as we will be reporting from ISE for the next issue, as well as looking into the large room marketplace and how businesses can become more sustainable. As always, I invite you to get involved in the magazine. If you have any thoughts on topics, news, or fancy meeting up my email is elliot@ucadvanced.com. With that, enjoy the issue, let me know what you think! Most of all, let me be one of the last to wish you a Happy New Year!
It may be cliche, or even a bit obvious but I always see the turn of a year as a turning of a page. Modern working life is busy, when months fly by quickly, going from exhibitions to the end of the financial year, planning for the 12 months ahead, it’s usually August that offers a lull before the push into the festive period. Because these months can merge, I’ve found that years have started to merge too. Certainly in the UC industry, since 2020, the headlines have rarely changed, lurching from growth in Teams usage to the reception of hybrid working, to growth in Zoom usage; I expect that’s why GenerativeAI has become such a hit. But as we settle into the new year I am looking forward to a change in the narrative. For a long time now one of the questions I’ve been wanting to ask Zoom executives is how are you taking on Microsoft? What’s the plan? I’ve only resisted the urge because, for the most part, the answer is predictable; looking after customers, offering great services, and being easy to deal with. But with the introduction of Zoom Docs and Generative AI for free, Zoom seems to be making the move it needs to in order to take a chunk of market share out of its competitors in the northwest of the United States. In the year of the Dragon, with the new solutions on top of the suite of software it can provide, it’s now time for Zoom to become a problem for Microsoft to respond to. That’s the impression I got when I sat down with Zoom EMEA CEO, Frederik Maris (page 38) at the end of last year, who hinted that we will be hearing a lot from the collaboration provider, as not enough people know about the suite of solutions Zoom can offer.
Elliot Mulley-Goodbarne Editor
CALLING ALL BRANDS
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