3 Areas Where Digital Intelligence Aids Human Intelligence3 Areas Where Digital Intelligence Aids Human Intelligence

In the hybrid world, three things are important: staying connected, staying secure, and staying “always-on,” Cisco CEO Chuck Robbins said during his keynote this week at Cisco Live. This has given chief informational officers (CIOs) a new set of dilemmas to manage while also driving complex innovation and operations.

“Complexity is absolutely everywhere in the hybrid world,” Alistair Wildman, SVP/GM CX AMER, Cisco, explained during the “Win in a Hybrid World with Predictive Intelligence and Experiences” session. “If you look across the industry right now, people are not where they used to be—we need a lot more talent—particularly in the areas of complexity.”

Organizations can collect actionable insights from conversational AI to resolve skills and training gaps. As Richard Stevenson, CEO of Red Box noted earlier in a No Jitter Q&A, “This technology can allow a company to find the areas of their business that can be shifted from human agents to AI technology, freeing their support teams to address higher-priority tasks.” Stevenson amplified that point by saying business leaders reported using conversational AI to predict and prevent turnover within their company and identify areas where there may be training and skills gaps.

But “there’s a lot more work you have to do,” Chris Rittler, VP, CX, product management, Cisco, said during the “Win in a Hybrid World with Predictive Intelligence and Experiences” session. The journey starts with human intelligence and digital intelligence coexisting. Rittler said that Cisco’s customers say, “digital is fantastic—but we love the people, don’t lose the people.”

Rittler identified three areas where human intelligence and digital intelligence are “coming together” and where organizations should invest time and energy.

Digital and Human Intelligence Combine to Create Solutions Expertise

When thinking about what it takes to create solutions expertise, Rittler said, “you have to develop use cases that drive meaningful outcomes for customers.” Next, he added, you must train your delivery experts to be capable of doing so. In addition to training, “you also have to give them the digital tools to be successful.” Among these tools is full-stack observability, which provides an overview of the entire IT environment to IT operations, development, and networking teams. Rittler explained how full-stack observability provides insights into your customers digital experience, or into your how your hybrid cloud is operating.

Routed optical networks is another area creating challenges for customers. Rittler attributed these challenges to “taking the IP plane and the optical plane and bringing them together,” which tend to be two different teams, and instantly creates a skills gap.

Digital and Human Intelligence Bridge the Skills Gap

“The new generation of learners want to learn in a different way—they want a community,” Rittler observed. To foster this digital experience, Cisco recently announced Cisco U, a learning community offering Cisco learning content alongside third-party training and community features like goal-based, solution-based, and project-based learning paths. These learning paths are AI-driven by the learner’s role, skillset, and certification goals. Digital content is modularized and searchable, which enables learner’s to find the appropriate training that suits their needs.

Cisco U also features quick-start pre-skill assessments, modular learning, advanced search, and a focus on goal setting, designed to work for everyone's unique journey. It also includes personalized recommendations and feedback, plus learning in the moment of need to help learners advance their skills. It's also for individuals who need the training to seek certification, role, or solution.

The Customer & Agent Experience

Stevenson explaining that conversational AI tools bridge the gap between the agent and customer experience by allowing an agent to more precisely understand the customer through factors such as sentiment, tone, and other critical insights. Workforce management, ensuring a company has the right people with the right skills doing the right task at the right time, may be a step in the right direction.

It’s no secret that the vital component to happy customers is happy employees, and when you leverage the voice of the employee, you leverage the voice of the customer. This is a point we also saw at Enterprise Connect 2022, as explained by session speaker Juanita Coley. “As we introduce more and more technology like AI that allows a customer to engage with bots, move to a chat powered by conversational AI, then to a video call in a single interaction, this prompts us to think about workforce management much differently.”