For software development leaders managing geographically dispersed teams, fostering seamless communication and collaboration is paramount. Video conferencing has emerged as a cornerstone of remote work, but its effectiveness can be significantly amplified through the strategic application of AI. To learn more about this trend, DevPro Journal recently spoke with Amit Barave, VP of Product Management at Webex by Cisco.
How can companies use AI to help them build better teams, whether during the talent acquisition process, as project teams are being formed, or in employee development initiatives?
Amit Barave, VP of Product Management, Webex by Cisco: In today’s era of work, organizations must provide teams with flexibility in when, where, and how they work – which requires technology that best optimizes collaboration. AI-enabled solutions can help address these expectations for flexibility, allowing employees to get work done on their own terms – whether that means working at home, offices or even virtual workspaces via AR/VR. AI-powered features can also be integrated into collaboration devices to ensure that remote and in-person team members have inclusive and immersive meeting experiences that make them feel like they have a seat at the table regardless of where they’re joining a meeting from.
Companies can also adopt AI-fueled collaboration tools to enhance employee productivity by automating repetitive and time-consuming tasks. From providing meeting summaries to filtering through messages, this technology helps employees save time and free up bandwidth to focus on complex, thoughtful, and creative work.
How does this type of technology work? What are the potential positive outcomes?
Barave: I’m happy to speak to the Cisco AI Assistant for Webex, our generative AI-powered platform for hybrid work. The AI Assistant for Webex helps employees save time by delivering automatic meeting summaries and action items, as well as providing space summaries to quickly catch up on missed messages.
The AI Assistant prompts Webex users with questions like “ask me about the meeting” that users can respond to with typing sentences, such as “catch me up on the 15 minutes I missed in the meeting” or “catch me up on all the meetings I missed on Friday while I was on PTO.” In return the AI Assistant generates answers in real-time.
This solution results in an overall better employee experience, increasing productivity and efficiency. As Cisco continues to innovate in this space, we’re not just focused on the latest technology. We’re focused on enhancing employee and customer experiences with AI that works quietly and seamlessly in the background like our new industry leading AI Codec that ensures nothing is missed when you have packet lost.
What are the potential pitfalls?
Barave: Though we’re still in the early days of exploring everything that’s possible with AI, it’ll be important for companies to mitigate inappropriate uses of AI as it may enable more advanced scams, convincing deep fakes, and more.
When integrating AI, it is essential that leaders and key decision makers keep top of mind their responsibility to mitigate potential harm and maintain trust for employees, partners and customers. To address this, Cisco developed a Responsible AI framework that outlines our commitment to AI governance, with security, privacy, and human rights at the forefront of our product development. We implement these principles whether a product is in development, deployment, or in use by Cisco or our partners and customers.
It’s also important to address another key principle in Cisco’s approach to AI – transparency. It is often not clear to users when and how AI is used. Transparent practices, such as informing users when AI is being used to make decisions, is essential to building trust in the use of the technology and empowering users to make informed decisions around how they interact with technology that leverages AI.
How is AI being used to help teams communicate across language barriers?
Barave: In an AI-first world, human interactions matter more than ever. That’s why Cisco is committed to helping businesses to deliver exceptional experiences for their most important interactions, creating places where technology meets humanity and where work is an experience, not just a location.
Part of this is removing the language barrier. Until recently, it was not easy to collaborate with others who spoke different languages. Now, with solutions like Cisco AI Assistant for Webex, users can translate messages into 100+ languages and get real-time transcription during a meeting in 120+ languages. This means that participants in the same meeting can communicate in different languages, resulting in more inclusive and engaging meetings.
What are some other ways AI is being used to make development teams more efficient?
Barave: As the world continues to transition into a more permanent hybrid workforce, AI-powered video and audio intelligence capabilities will greatly enhance collaboration experiences by helping to ensure everyone is able to participate equally when they collaborate, regardless of where or how they work.
At Cisco, we champion a concept called Distance Zero – we build technologies that eliminate the distance and barriers between in-person and remote employees. The idea is to build and equip workplaces with technology that, quietly supported by powerful AI, makes it feel like you’re in the room with colleagues regardless of where they are in the world. With purpose built, AI-powered collaboration devices, companies can use audio and video intelligence to empower employees navigating the workforce of today and tomorrow.
The use and integration of AI-enhanced technologies like these will accommodate the flexible workstyles of today’s workforce and make collaboration more personalized and efficient.
