As pandemic-related disruptions recede into history, IT professionals can look at the evolving technology landscape as they address today’s challenges. While reliability and quality continue to be top-of-mind concerns, training and user adoption is a surprising new pain point, according to a new Bandwidth report, “Enterprise Communications Landscape 2024.”
Based on interviews with 1,000 IT leaders across North America and EMEA, the report focuses on the ongoing move to the cloud, growing adoption of AI tools, and the challenges of achieving 911 compliance. “While your roles as IT leaders inevitably get more complicated, there’s also the opportunity to find new harmonies,” said Ankush Gangwani, GM/VP of product, enterprise at Bandwidth. “A new era of CPaaS has arrived, with plenty of ways to consolidate, rethink, and centralize for resilient enterprise communications.”
Here are some of the key takeaways from the report.
Migrating to the cloud
“Migration is a big lift—especially for global businesses that have grown through mergers and acquisitions,” said the report, noting that both UCaaS and CCaaS adoption rates continue to increase. Currently, 90% of respondents are now using a cloud-based contact center, up about 10% from 2023. However, nearly half of CCaaS users have hybrid deployments with on-premise centers. “Leaning on your carrier can help you move to the cloud without disruption and architect your communications to meet requirements across infrastructure, regulatory, and user functionality,” said the report.
Deploying AI/ML for CX
IT leaders are prioritizing AI/ML adoption, and it seems to be paying off, according to the report.
AI has become a trusted CX tool, and agent assist, virtual agents, and sentiment analysis are key parts of a contact center strategy. This year, 92% of contact centers plan to adopt AI/ML technologies, and new use cases continue to emerge. About 83% of respondents who have adopted AI said they are using it effectively when applied to the frontlines of customer communication.
Trust and privacy issues
However, enterprises are much slower to deploy AI tools for employee communications, where trust and data privacy are key concerns. “Organizations are wary about how AI models may use their sensitive or proprietary data, and many IT leaders want to bring their preferred or internal AI models into tools,” said the report, adding that only 20% of organizations said they’d use generative AI for content creation and summarization.
Ongoing security threats
Security threats in the contact center are evolving rapidly, and enterprise strategies have fallen behind. “Regain lost ground this year with tools like mission-critical tools like spoof detection, fraud scoring, and voice bioauthentication,” said the report.
911 compliance
Managing 911 compliance is a 2024 priority for many organizations. Last year, 56% of U.S.-based respondents said they were ‘fully compliant’ with RAY BAUM’s Act and Kari’s Law and 44% were at risk of non-compliance and employee safety during workplace emergencies. Although no new emergency regulations will be enacted this year, those changes in workforce strategies, tech stacks and workflows could impact 911 compliance.
Reducing tool sprawl
Simplification is another theme for the year, according to the report. Enterprises can build best-in-class communications stacks, thanks to platform-agnostic providers and carrier options. As the report said, “This can help eliminate tool sprawl and consolidate vendors without sacrificing control or freedom.”
