With its acquisition of Next IT, Verint signals that Intelligent Assistance technologies most definitely fit into the customer care mainstream. Next IT, a Spokane-based company, was founded in 2002 and was, until yesterday, one of a small cadre IA “pure plays,” providing hardware, software and services that enable brands to build enterprise-grade, conversational virtual agents and digital assistants. Among its showcase icons are SGT STAR (for the U.S. Army) and Jenn for Alaska Airlines and dozens of others.

The purchase price starts at $30 million in cash at the time of completion, with performance-based additions that could make the total value of the deal $51 million, according to a report in Newsday.

From Opus Research’s perspective, the transaction is a “win-win” for both firms. Next IT radically changed its product offerings and go-to-market strategy last October by opening up access to its library of 90,000 intents and 165,000 unique actions for targeted verticals. This action had a dual effect. It showcased the central importance of data in the form of chat logs, product literature, CRM records and the like to inform the intent recognition platform. At the same time, it attracted the interest of a data-driven company like Verint whose executives recognized a fit between its efforts to build self-service applications that supported both voice and digital channels and Next IT’s approach to supporting “conversational AI”.

IVR and IVA
“Now we can look beyond channels and get right to the data,” explained John Hibel, director of marketing for digital and inbound at Verint’s Contact Solutions subsidiary. The first fruits of the Next IT acquisition will be harvested and delivered to clients of Contact Solutions. They will find that Verint offers them a new set options based on the fact that their data can be core to a variety of self-service options, in addition to services offered through live agents. The two companies look at it this way: Contact Solutions as IVR (Interactive Voice Response) and Next IT offered IVA (Intelligent Virtual Assistants).

As a leader in call recording and analytics, Verint is a font of raw material for the Next IT engine. The information residing in Verint’s CRM, WFO and call monitoring infrastructure can inform and indeed drive self-service solutions. This should be a powerful selling point for prospective IA customers. As Jennifer Snell, VP at Next IT explained, “They can pick from the portfolio of opportunities to decide the right service at the right time for the right outcome.”

Categories: Conversational Intelligence, Intelligent Assistants