Cisco is bringing a whole load of AI features to its cloud collaboration platform, Webex. Its new strategy which focuses on using AI to enhance real-time audio and video communications is touted to change the way companies collaborate in a world that is embracing a hybrid model of work. Unlike traditional AI applications limited to text or documents, Cisco’s Webex leverages AI for audio and video to tackle everyday challenges, ensuring crystal-clear calls and meetings even with low bandwidth.

The Webex AI Assistant

In the largest way, Cisco is introducing AI as a digital personal assistant to help augment and boost productivity when using Webex. The Webex AI Assistant is a powerful tool designed to boost productivity and accuracy. This new AI Assistant will be integrated across the entire Webex portfolio, which includes the Webex Suite, Cisco Collaboration devices, Webex Contact Center, Webex Connect, and Webex Control Hub. This approach is already being tested by renowned companies like McLaren Racing and Team DSM.

The Webex AI Assistant will offer a range of capabilities that empower users and reduce IT workload. These features include:

• Change Message Tone, which provides suggestions to improve messaging tone, format, and phrasing.
• Suggested Responses for contact centre agents responding to customers on digital channels.
• Meeting Summaries to help users catch up on missed meetings with easily digestible summaries.
• Message Summaries to recap unread messages or spaces.
• Slido Topic Summaries for virtual and hybrid events to navigate trending topics.

According to Jeetu Patel, Executive Vice President and General Manager of Cisco Security and Collaboration, “We’re at the tipping point of a new era of hybrid work, with AI holding the key to helping us bridge the gap and enable us all to work and communicate to our full potential.”

AI For Better Quality Conferencing with Webex’s Real-Time Media Models (RMMs), AI Codec & Super Resolution

Cisco is also bringing Real-Time Media Models (RMMs) to Webex. These models will provide rich context for human interactions during meetings. They will enhance audio and video quality, enabling features like people and object recognition, and action analytics such as movement and gestures. RMMs enable audio and video channels to provide context for text-based capabilities like meeting summaries and highlights.

For example, in the future, Webex could recognize when a participant leaves a meeting and capture meeting notes to bring them up to speed upon their return.

In addition, Cisco is also introducing AI Codecs to resolve audio quality challenges caused by network impairments. Whether you’re in a car, a hotel room, or a rural area with poor connectivity, this AI Codec aims to deliver crystal-clear audio by ensuring that the audio quality remains consistent regardless of network conditions. The AI Codecs also include speech enhancement functions like noise removal and bandwidth extension.

Webex employs machine learning techniques to enhance video quality through Super Resolution. Super Resolution, in terms that AMD and NVIDIA use is a super sampling of graphical data to create an image that is larger than the resolution intended and then downsampling it to meet the intended resolution. With technologies like DLSS and FidelityFX, this technology is able to deliver more detail even at lower resolutions. In Cisco’s case, it will be used to deliver high-definition video quality, regardless of varying bandwidth conditions.

Responsible AI Framework & Rollout

Cisco adheres to a Responsible AI Framework that prioritizes transparency, fairness, accountability, privacy, security, and reliability. The Webex AI strategy and AI Assistant capabilities will align with this framework.

These innovations are set to roll out at various stages in 2023. Cisco is committed to delivering the best AI experience through a combination of best-of-breed models, both commercial and open source, with a focus on security, privacy, and human rights.