Cisco Rolls Out New AI-Based Cognitive Collaboration Tools for Webex

Cisco has launched a series of new AI-driven features for Webex. The new features will help users get meetings started more quickly and easily learn more about the people they’re meeting with.

The Webex conferencing tool enhancements, which include faster meeting startup, a better way to know the people attending a meeting and facial-recognition improvements will help customers more effectively collaborate from any location.

SVP and GM, Collaboration Technology Group, Cisco, Amy Chang said, “Cognitive Collaboration is a game changer for Cisco customers across all industries. When we enable people to collaborate from wherever they are in a way that’s intuitive, easy and smart, we make their work and life experience better and more productive.”

Cisco is adding a feature called Proactive Join to Webex Assistant. The feature will proactively ask a user if they’d like to join their meeting when they walk into a meeting room. It relies on Cisco’s intelligent proximity technology to determine the user’s location from their mobile device. It also depends on information taken from the user’s calendar.

Along with Proactive Join, Webex Assistant is getting a new feature called First Match that ensures the system contacts the right person to join a meeting. For instance, if a user says, “Call Susan,” First Match will determine which Susan you communicate with the most via Webex Teams spaces to find the right match.

Webex Assistant, along with First Match technology, is now generally available now across the entire Webex Room Series. Proactive Join is available on a limited basis and will be generally available in June.

Cisco also announced new facial recognition capabilities within Webex. Using a Webex device, a user can identify all of the individuals in the room.

The feature starts with a profile picture that a user submits via the settings page. The system scans the picture and gives it an identifying number, which represents the user.

Then, during a meeting, the system will scan the faces of meeting participants and use the same algorithm to calculate an identifying number for the participants — that calculation happens locally. The information is encrypted and then matched against the numbers stored. This will be available in June.

For more information, watch  this video