What's Up with Tech?

Transforming Workplaces: The Convergence of AI, AV, and Modern Collaboration

• Evan Kirstel

Share episode
Speaker 1:

Hey everybody, it's that time of the year Infocomm the largest pro AV show in the world. I'm delighted to have an innovator in the space here today at Unified Communications and really excited to dive into Infocomm and all things AI-powered workplace and beyond with Ryan and Jacob Ryan. How are you?

Speaker 2:

I'm doing great. Evan, Thanks so much for having us. We're really excited about InfoComm and excited to be with you here today.

Speaker 1:

Well, thanks so much. Before we dive in, maybe introduce yourself, your team, within Unified Communications and tell us about the company and the mission these days.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I'm Ryan Herbst. I lead strategy for Unified Communications and we are focused around modern work and AI and AV and telephony and how it all kind of weaves together. It's a very, very exciting time and we're particularly excited about InfoComm. We have a big presence and, I think, a fun story, and this is just one of those moments in time where, yeah, I think all of us feel like, yeah, the time is now and we've got a very unique story to tell.

Speaker 1:

I can't wait to dive in. We have Jacob as well. Jacob, I admire your setup there behind you, but maybe introduce yourself and your role around meetings and devices at Unified Communications.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, thanks, Evan. Yeah, Jacob Fisher, senior strategist here, focus on meetings, devices kind of all things. Teams are going to be showing off a lot of that in the booth, Looking forward to it.

Speaker 1:

Well, such an exciting time. Let's start, Ryan, with the vision at Unified Communications, as well as Microsoft. These days, the AI-powered workplace Maybe define what it is in your opinion and the role in helping customers accelerate their journey, as it were, towards a more modern AI-powered environment.

Speaker 2:

Thanks, evan. As I said, it's a really interesting time. I think the pace of change is so daunting and I think, for those of us who are staying close and are part of this journey, we're watching organizations go down two distinct paths. Some are leaning heavily into AI and these are kind of frontier firms the term that Microsoft recently coined kind of the frontier firms the term that Microsoft recently coined. They're the early adopters of AI and they've embraced all the collaboration tools and they understand that change is a constant and they're breaking out from the pack in their industries and starting to see increased productivity and agility and, ultimately, competitiveness. And so at Unified Communications, we're focused on them and helping organizations lean in if they don't feel like that's where they are at this moment.

Speaker 2:

We have some pretty unique superpowers around AI and AV and telephony and adoption and change management. And, yeah, we're here to help organizations create and reap the benefits of an AI-powered workplace. Today, too many of the discussions are focused on things that are going to be possible in the future or they're going to relate to a specific tool or workload together the AI and modern work capabilities of Copilot, chat and Agents and Microsoft 365, copilot and Teams, phone and Teams, rooms and Microsoft Places and Viva and what that looks like, where you can start seeing instant productivity and improved collaboration and flexibility and really just making work more enjoyable. That's our mission. That's our mission, that's where we are and that's part of the story that we're so excited to amplify and show to the world at Infocom.

Speaker 1:

And I'm excited to hear it and see it. I know UC of course has a huge presence at Infocom. The old joke, you know, software is eating the world is kind of now like AI is eating the world. So AI and software and UC have sort of dominated the discussion around AV, particularly at Infocomm this week. What are you showcasing, what can attendees expect and what do you have in store at the booth?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, so we're going to be at booth 3817. So for anybody watching, we would love to see you. And I mentioned kind of superpowers. We feel like the AV industry hasn't been particularly innovative and even the Infocom show has been largely about AV. But as this kind of converged new world, we think that our strengths and again, superpowers in the AV integration and AI and telephony and software development and modern work, that's kind of converging in a way that is really meaningful.

Speaker 2:

It's going to be on full display at the booth.

Speaker 2:

So we're going to be showcasing our day in the life of an AI-powered workplace demo.

Speaker 2:

We're also going to be showing advanced use of AI in the meeting room, including the things that Microsoft recently launched and weaved into Teams rooms, and we're also going to show some of the ways that we can go even beyond what Microsoft is doing and extend advanced voice and camera and other AI to a meeting space and make it much more than somewhere that you go just to meet and connect with remote participants.

Speaker 2:

We're also gonna have our Teams Room and AV Design Team there, showing unique designs for both high value spaces and, on the other side of the spectrum, ways that the people can go much faster and use lower cost approaches to rapidly deploy a lot of rooms using the new Express install portfolio and our rapid deployment options, and our modern work and AI team is going to be there showing some exciting co-pilot agents that we've developed and sharing stories about how we're helping organizations accelerate Teams Phone and its advanced AI capabilities, ourilot and M365, and, as well as a Teams Room adoption and content subscription.

Speaker 2:

Our managed service team that runs Teams Rooms and helps people scale and do that on a global basis 24-7, will be there. And, lastly, our global logistics and deployment team is going to be talking about how we land hardware and deploy things like rooms and telephony all over the world and some of our unique tools and portals to help manage standards and projects and device selection. So it's a big story and we would love to have viewers come to the booth and spend a little time with us, because I think there's a lot to unpack.

Speaker 1:

A little time or a lot of time sounds like a lot of cool education. I'm really intrigued, Jacob, by the day in the life demo, an AI-powered workplace demo. Tell me more about it. What's the big idea and what's the takeaway in advance?

Speaker 3:

Yeah, the idea is really to take folks through really with AI-powered workplace for something that, something that's more relatable, role-based storytelling.

Speaker 3:

We don't want to go into this just a list of features and expect people to put that together themselves, really want to walk people through day and life.

Speaker 3:

We picked out three personas an information worker, an HR manager and a facilities manager.

Speaker 3:

I think we'll land well with the folks here and really walk them through how all these AI tools are embedded in everything they're using throughout the day Productivity, decision-making, collaboration and kind of how that all just flows from beginning to end. So kind of think of it like someone's beginning of their day, kind of doing their planning using Microsoft Places, figuring out where they're going to spend their day, where they're going to book their meeting rooms, how they're going to meet collaboration, taking their phone calls, how it kind of both kind of passively and actively AI is involved in a story, like the idea that there's like voice isolation that's going to make their calls more clear but at the same time, they can bring Copilot into that and are able to generate notes, and then obviously a big one will be with this, how all those kind of different AI enhancements in the meetings and in the meeting room spaces. So that's really the idea not just a tech showcase, but to really put that story together, put a narrative behind it.

Speaker 1:

That's fantastic, because many of us are just getting to know Teams, phone and the AI-powered workplace. Discussion sounds intriguing. You mentioned a few things, but what are some of the? Maybe highlight some of the innovations that people might not be aware of at the moment?

Speaker 2:

Yeah. So from a Teams phone perspective, yeah, one, I'll say that, yeah, I think there's some real advantages if we think about where things are going to. Having all of your AI in one cloud, just across everything that you're doing and calling, is a core element of this AI-powered workplace. So, for example, copilot can transcribe even a PSTN call and it could transfer the summary with the context when it's transferred from an agent or knowledge worker, and there are a ton of other advanced AI features. Plus, I think also important, there's just a very different cost structure and list of functionality than when Teams Phone was launched, and so, yeah, it's an important piece of the overall puzzle.

Speaker 1:

Important indeed, and meeting room experiences have changed dramatically since we remember them. Pre-pandemic as we head back into the office, increasingly pandemic as we head back into the office, increasingly. What are some of the team's rooms innovations you'll be showcasing and what are some of the cool features we might be surprised by?

Speaker 2:

Well, I can't spoil the surprise, but I will. In addition, I'll tell you a little bit. So, in addition to showcasing Microsoft's latest innovations, like we're going to be showing the facilitator agent that takes notes in the room for either scheduled or even ad hoc meetings that's again in our booth 3817. So you'll see AI and cameras used in some innovative ways that I don't think you've seen before. I think of this a bit like a car show, where you come and see some of the concept cars and the art of the possible and what you get when you mix some creativity and deep development skills and AI and AV and modern work and telephony together, which is again kind of uncommon in the AV space space. Yeah, av hasn't been particularly innovative and, yeah, we're going to be showing how it can all come together to create a very different experience both in the meeting room and beyond in the workplace.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, considering how many Teams calls I take in my car, that car show analogy is pretty apt here. Speaking of destinations, Jacob, you mentioned Microsoft Places. I'm not too familiar with that. Maybe tell the audience more about it, how it works, how it fits in the overall AI-powered workplace story.

Speaker 3:

Yeah, we get that question a lot.

Speaker 3:

So, idea behind places, think of it like a platform to optimize hybrid work, really about making, when you get to the workplace, making that idea of like when you, when you come in, make it a dynamic, intentional, making sure everyone is connected there.

Speaker 3:

I can kind of look at it both the benefit from the employee experience and also from the IT management side.

Speaker 3:

So from the employee side we'll be showing it as folks go through the idea about being able to select the days they're in the office, making sure that when they're coming to that office they're there face to face with their team, but then also, when they're in that office, allowing them to select the place they're going to book, book the pod next to the people that they're going to be, you know, in the appropriate building and floor where they are.

Speaker 3:

And then also some of the enhancements there about being able to select their meeting rooms, giving it suggestions around the appropriate meeting space to go into, make sure they're going to the right space and they're really only taking advantage of that face-to-face time when they're in the office, both desk and as well, as you know, when they go into those meeting spaces, just getting to the office sitting at their desk and joining a Teams meeting, actually going and using those AV spaces. But then the other side of the coin there as well is there's a ton of analytics that's available as well, showing the utilization of these desks and these rooms and things that IT management can get. Again, we'll show the AI side of that as well Co-pilot, giving you some suggestions around, maybe looking at some of that space planning and stuff.

Speaker 3:

If you're looking at a refresh or looking at adjustment of days in the office and that sort of thing that we'll be able to show folks.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Yeah, microsoft is investing so much at such breakneck speed it's really hard to keep track of all the feature functionality and AI intelligence they add to the product. Talk a little bit about Teams Premium. What layers of intelligence and customization they're adding there, and are you going to showcase any of that capability as well?

Speaker 3:

of that capability as well. We will. The question we get a lot at Teams Premium is, you know it's a lot to grasp with the amount of features that they have there. When it was first coming out, we were tracking each of the features as they were launching and as we were consulting with customers. We hit a number of like 50-plus features, I think before we started counting, like to find how you want to slice and dice it.

Speaker 3:

I think the most important one, though that kind of ties in this whole story would be the intelligent recap feature the ability for it to transfer it from a meeting and be able to give you a summary of that, so you don't require, like, the full copilot license to get something that's similar to just a Teams premium feature and get a lot of use of these AI innovations.

Speaker 3:

So we'll kind of show both I think people are familiar with using it like desktop side if they've used it before where that kind of comes in, showing how it gives a summary of what's there. Also, show the facilitator agent that comes along with that. That is really useful where it can give you AI-generated notes as that meeting goes along. It will give you a great summary of how people are to take that from the meeting and use that later. We're also going to highlight how that comes into the meeting room. Some of the other AI features, like being able to do speaker attribution and face attribution and the segmentation of the video and stuff give you a context and give you an equitable experience of what you get on the desktop side as well as in the meeting room. We'll show how that all kind of comes together, both during the meeting, but also how that all kind of ties into your AI-generated recaps at the end.

Speaker 1:

Brilliant. So, Ryan, there's so much to take away from InfoComm. It's always somewhat overwhelming. If there's one takeaway, you hope every attendee takes away with them from visiting you, from visiting Infocomm. What is it? What are you hoping to get across this year?

Speaker 2:

Evan, we're hoping that they see Unified Communications is not just your standard AV company, that we are a creative and highly skilled organization that's bringing a refreshing and innovative approach to AV and telephony and modern work and AI, and we think now is the time to lean into AI and innovation. The technology is here, the train's moving fast and organizations really need a trusted partner that can help deliver a true AI-powered workplace story, versus simply kind of a one-trick pony or a legacy AV integrator.

Speaker 1:

I love that Trusted partner, trusted advisor. And for those who aren't attending InfoComm maybe can't make it you put out a ton of interesting content webinars, workshops. What else is going on in parallel to the in-person event?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, two things that we're really excited about, even if somebody is attending, but certainly for those who are not we have an AI-powered workplace webinar where we'll be going through that day-in-the-life story that Jake talked about and that is taking place next week, wednesday, june 18th, at 1 pm Central Time. Again, we're going to go through that AI-powered workplace story and the magic that you can create if we weave together Teams, phone and Teams, rooms and Copilot, chat and Agents and M365 and Places and Viva that whole world of how that comes together in a cohesive way and makes such a difference. And, evan, we're also offering for your followers and viewers a complimentary AI-powered workplace strategy session, so somebody like Jake or me, one of our strategists, will sit down and do a deeper dive with an organization into where they are on their journey and provide some insights around how we can potentially help them accelerate it.

Speaker 1:

Fantastic. Well, I love the focus on education and insight and providing value add. It's much needed in this industry and congratulations have a great InfoComm.

Speaker 2:

Oh, thank you so much, Evan. Thank you so much for having us.

Speaker 1:

Thanks for being here and thanks everyone for listening and watching and reach out to us on Twitter and LinkedIn, youtube, all the places for more information and links, and everything in the copy. Take care, see you soon.