I have one more event from my recent run of travel to post about, and that will clear up a big backlog I’ve been trying to get through. The event was Cisco WebexOne, hosted in Anaheim, CA – right across the street from Disneyland. As with other events, I shared updates regularly on LinkedIn, and I’ve included a tally of those posts below. Aside from that, I’m going to cite three main takeaways and messages from WebexOne here, along with some photos not shared earlier, except for one.

1. All-In on AI

Right off the top, Jeetu Patel talked about how Cisco – and Webex in particular – will be “an AI-first company”, with AI being “the core fabric” for all their platforms. There really are two messages here, with the first being all AI, all the time. All the vendors are on this journey now, so nothing surprising there – in the blink of an eye, AI has become more than just table stakes; it’s starting to sound like their raison d’être.

Fair enough, but the stronger message is how the idea of core fabric means that AI is becoming part of the DNA across their entire portfolio as well as their partner ecosystem. For example, one of their updated offerings – AI Assistant – is part of both their UCaaS and CCaaS platforms.

Bigger picture, though – AI-driven applications will now be infused across all the portfolio elements – Webex Suite for UCaaS, Contact Center for premises-based deployments, Connect for CCaaS, all their devices and endpoints, as well as Control Hub, which ties everything together. As such, their AI story is now holistic and very much platform level, so it’s much bigger than a collection of AI apps and point solutions.

2. Audio and Video Drives the User Experience

Taking this down a level or two, they made the fundamental assertion that all the AI in the world won’t make a difference unless you have a great user experience. When it comes to communications and collaboration – either in the workplace or the contact center - that means having great audio and video capabilities. These fundamentals are easy to take for granted, and I really liked how they parsed out what they’re doing, not just for UX, but for how Cisco is trying to differentiate.

The main update is AI Codec (ultra-low bit-rated resilient codec), which uses generative AI among other things to ensure high quality audio across all network conditions. So, when bandwidth is variable or spotty, packets will drop, and that degrades audio quality. I’m not an engineer, but they explained how these packets carry multiple copies of the audio, so if one drops, the others will get through – that’s redundancy to cover packet loss. A key part of the AI piece is how the codec removes extraneous elements like background noise so that only the voice signals are heard. Got it.

My photos below aren’t great, but the first one shows how AI Codec maintains top quality performance across the spectrum of low levels of bandwidth – between 1 and 6 kbps. Compare that to the right side of that chart, which shows the industry standard Opus Codec, and how it only maintains that level of performance at much higher bandwidth levels – 16 kbps. So, when it comes to supporting the varying bandwidth scenarios for hybrid work, Cisco maintains their new codec is better aligned.

The photo on the right is clearer, and shows another data set to support their audio quality story. In the speech recognition world, Word Error Rate (WER) is a benchmark for accuracy, where the lower the metric, the more accurate the speech engine. Cisco’s capability here comes largely from its Voicea acquisition, and this chart shows their market standing in two ways.

In absolute terms, the current version of Voicea leads the pack at 11.5% (meaning an 88.5% level of accuracy), well ahead of the leading brands. Then, in relative terms, the chart shows four data points for Voicea, and how their WER has steadily improved from 14.6% to 11.5%. This is where Machine Learning comes into play with continuous improvement, adding another layer to Cisco’s AI story.

Disclaimer – I’m a market researcher by trade, and I don’t know the source of this data. Every speech rec player seems to find a data set that shows them to be the best, and I cannot vouch for how authoritative Cisco’s claims here are. Note to self to follow up on this.

Before this post becomes too long, there are other pieces that help make for better audio and video experiences, such as their newly-touted Real Time Media Model (RMM), which they view as a complement to Large Language Models (LLM), something that all the vendors are behind as part of their AI stories. I’ll move on now, but I hope you get the main idea for how Cisco sees audio and video as core to the Webex value proposition.

3. No, Distance Zero is What Matters

Not to be outdone by Jeetu and Javed, Snorre Kjesbu added the importance of devices to the equation, and in my mind, it’s just as important. No other vendor brings all these pieces to the table – and of course the networking gear – making this another way for Cisco to differentiate; and as always, Snorre has a very clear vision of how they do this.

First off, he maintains that the devices playing field really isn’t that strong – maybe – so there’s room for them to do things their way. A great example is the new Cisco 950 ear buds, produced – and equally important, branded – with Bang & Olufsen. Top quality audio quality and Scandinavian design cred aside, this is a high-end, premium product that helps position Webex as a leading brand. That should resonate nicely with their enterprise customers – which is where they want to be – but not so much down market, where picking up buds at Best Buy will do the job.

Bigger picture, Snorre talked about “distance zero” being their “North Star” (am starting to hear that term a lot lately, so be careful not to over-use it) – meaning that their devices deliver experiences that take distance out of the equation. The idea is being able to “lead from anywhere”, whether you’re at home or in-office. Since the focus here is mostly on meetings, the idea also applies to any type of space or configuration – big board room, huddle space, lecture hall setup, auditorium seating, in the round (campfire), etc.

Their portfolio of meeting room devices is built to support all of these scenarios, showing a strong recognition for how the post-pandemic workplace is evolving. There’s lots more to talk about in terms of these devices and the experiences (such as Cinematic Meetings), but the takeaway here is that they have a really impressive lineup of devices – all being AI-powered to support their holistic approach to AI – that not only makes for smarter, more equitable collaboration, but is easy enough to use that AV specialists aren’t needed (hey, design thinking).