The simultaneous acquisition of Tenfold and Voicebase signals a set of transformational tactics by LivePerson (LP). It has long talked the talk of a unified approach to Conversational AI, while its core competencies mostly involved helping brands integrate both live chat and chatbots into their, respective, omnichannel strategies. Well, “omnichannel” is now passé, being rightfully replaced by what LP’s management refers to as a “unified, AI-enabled system for customer experience.”

Opus Research characterizes it as a concentration on “conversational intelligence,” or the application of of real-time insights garnered from the words that each customer employs in the course of spoken conversations or chats with with live agents or intelligent virtual assistants. In short, it is “better listening.” In Voicebase, LivePerson has identified a long-standing provider of accurate automated speech recognition and transcription. Meanwhile, Tenfold has been a largely under-the-radar provider of connectors (like APIs) and workflows that make it possible for those insights to be captured, analyzed, written to back-office systems (CRM, inventory management, check-out), displayed on agent screens and employed for accurate routing of tasks across platforms for both text and voice based interactions.

A New Landscape is Emerging

LP’s management has long anticipated a fundamental disruption in, or creative destruction of Contact Center architecture. It acknowledged the staying power of the voice channel in spite of uncertainty created by the rapid growth of text-based interactions over Webchat, SMS, and messaging platforms. It recognizes that modern contact centers are not “centers” at all. Agents can be anywhere. Computing and communications resources live in public clouds. That makes the meaning of the words exchanged between brands and their customers and prospects central to the success of both parties. Simply put, Voicebase makes it easier for companies to understand the meaning of those words in real-time and Tenfold simplifies the sharing of those insights across multiple systems.

The time is ripe for Conversational Intelligence and LP is not alone in its pursuit of this emerging opportunity area. At its recent WebEx One Conference, Omar Tawakol, the General Manager of Cisco’s Customer Experience as a Service business unit, described the focus the WebEx Contact Center as “better listening.” Two years ago it acquired Voicea for its accurate real-time transcription and then brought on the resources of CloudCherry, a cloud-based solution. that performs sentiment analysis and predictive analytics through APIs or connectors to either premises-based or cloud-based Contact Centers. Other companies aiming to bring AI-infused analytics into real-time conversations with customers including Uniphore, Verint, NICE and CallMiner.

Avaya and Genesys will continue to support composable architectures that allow large brands to mix-and-match solutions from a long list of candidates. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, Nuance and IBM will vie with automated speech recognition “pure plays” like Deepgram, Speechmatics, GoVivace, Phonexia and others. Ideally, the outcome will be better listening, better understanding and better customer experience.

Categories: Intelligent Assistants