Gitex 2021: Avaya builds up AI experience to boost collaboration

Avaya has unveiled a new communications and collaboration system designed to simplify the ecosystem required to support the new normal of working and deliver what it claims are next-generation customer and employee experiences.

Avaya Experience Builders is designed to align the communications company’s services, partners and developers into an ecosystem to help enterprises build better experiences for employees and customers, wherever and whenever communications and collaboration happen.

The technology is claimed to make it easier for businesses to build and deliver these experiences across their limited or siloed development functions by providing the exact amount of co-development support that each company needs, whether subscribing to tailored existing experiences, developing completely new experiences or using artificial intelligence (AI) technology to enable end-users to self-compose their experiences.

“In the wake of remote work, the way enterprises are engaging has changed – they are asking us for specific expertise in building better experiences,” said Avaya CEO Jim Chirico. “How people feel about their interactions with companies is now more important than the products and services they buy, and every business must orchestrate memorable moments that shape customer and employee engagement, satisfaction and loyalty. These experiences are not just another name for “good customer service”.

Tailored, engaging and effortless communications and collaboration is key, said Chirico. “Recognising this decoupling of experiences from customer service opens possibilities for businesses to create much deeper relationships with their customers and drive new sources of revenue. However, these experiences can’t be delivered with monolithic apps in a cloud world. They must be composable.”

The new system’s components encompass more than 250 technology partners, including AI technology suppliers, more than 32,000 companies in Avaya DevConnect, over 154,000 registered developers – 24,000 of them using Avaya OneCloud CPaaS, and 7,200 channel partners and agents.

Specific solutions and tools address frameworks, connectors and pre-built workflows to solve problems and use cases. This includes more than 40 application programming interfaces (APIs) to connect existing Avaya systems with new cloud applications that the company believes can address new hybrid work use cases.

At its heart is the Avaya OneCloud communications and collaboration platform, providing the foundation to compose new experiences. Avaya OneCloud includes Avaya OneCloud UCaaS, Avaya OneCloud CCaaS and Avaya OneCloud CPaaS.

Supported applications include cloud-powered self-service to significantly reduce the number of calls that firms’ staff are required to handle. Having a scaling cloud infrastructure allows for such use cases in parallel, even during higher load times, and streamlining communications and collaboration for companies’ clients to engage with their customers.

Assessing Avaya Experience Builders, Zeus Kerravala of ZK Research said the launch is a de facto recognition of the need for businesses to expand their capabilities beyond their corporate walls to include partners, developers and even customers in an ecosystem creating AI-powered experiences.