AI Takes Center Stage in Best of Enterprise ConnectAI Takes Center Stage in Best of Enterprise Connect
Five of the six finalists for the Overall award use AI as the basis for their innovation.
February 11, 2020
The common thread in this year’s Best of Enterprise Connect Overall Award finalists — probably not surprisingly — is AI.
Five of the six finalists for the Overall award use AI, for functions ranging from customer service to security to enhanced video. The only finalist product that doesn’t put AI in the foreground addresses a topic that’s become almost as hot as AI for enterprise communications: multivendor interoperation.
In all, we received 50 product submissions for the Best of Enterprise Connect Award, and our panel of four vendor-neutral industry luminaries selected the following six as finalists for the Overall Best of EC Award (in alphabetical order):
Genesys — Genesys Predictive Engagement, with new features to be announced
Glia — Glia Conversational Compliance AI Framework, part of Glia's digital-first customer service platform, provides the framework to provision, measure, and manage AI-driven virtual assistants to converse with customers and operator assistants to guide agents
Journey — Journey Identity Platform, which aims to make it easy for enterprises to establish trusted interactions with their customers that simultaneously solve for security, customer experience, and privacy using an encrypted network and a platform of best-in-class identity solutions that can be dynamically applied using the enterprise’s mobile app
Mio — Mio's new intercompany federation for Microsoft Teams, Slack, and Cisco Webex Teams enables users to chat seamlessly with external business contacts who use a different messaging app
Omilia Natural Language Solutions — Omilia Cloud Platform miniApps, zero-touch natural language microservices that handle a single dialog task; instantly deployable to any call center provider and seamlessly adapted to any CCaaS service creation environment
Pexip — Adaptive Composition, an AI-powered technology with real-time face detection, auto-framing, and optimized use of screen real estate; works with any camera-enabled device
In addition to the Overall award, which honors general excellence and innovation, the Best of EC program recognizes outstanding entries in four specific categories. This year’s categories and their finalists are (in alphabetical order):
Best Application of AI
Genesys — For Genesys Predictive Engagement, as described above
Pexip — For Adaptive Composition, as described above
Theta Lake — Compliant Collaboration Archive, a new module within Theta Lake’s Compliance Suite for record keeping, archiving, and eDiscovery requirements for video, audio, and collaboration chat, with on-demand compliance risk analysis using AI and ML, across UCaaS platforms from RingCentral, Cisco Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, LogMeIn, and Red Box
Best Innovation for Meeting Rooms
Avaya — Avaya IX Spaces, a simple cloud solution that integrates friction-free web meetings and team collaboration into one app
Kramer Electronics — VIA GO², which gives iOS, Android, Chromebook, PC, and Mac users instant wireless connectivity with advanced presentation technology, featuring content streaming for 4K mirrored images and video playback
RingCentral — For a new product that will be announced at Enterprise Connect
Best Innovation for Customer Experience
Journey — For Journey Identity Platform, as described above
Best Innovation for Advancing Employee/End User Engagement
Embrava — Embrava Desk Sign, a smart sensor IoT device designed for hot desking, office hoteling, and activity-based working
Mio — For new Mio release, as described above
Companies can only enter one product for the Best in EC program. All entries are automatically considered for the Overall award, and in addition, companies may nominate their entry for consideration for any or all of the four category awards.
This year our Best of Enterprise Connect judges are:
Jon Arnold, principal, J Arnold & Associates
Brent Kelly, president & principal analyst, KelCor
Steve Leaden, president, Leaden Associates
Sheila McGee-Smith, founder & principal analyst, McGee-Smith Analytics
The judges will conduct briefings with each of the six finalists for the Overall award, and we’ll announce all the award winners at Enterprise Connect, in Orlando, Fla., on Wednesday, April 1, at 9 a.m. For more information on the Best of Enterprise Connect Award program, click here.
Editor's note: This article has been updated since original posting.
