NewsUC&C12 May 2023 · 6 min read

Big UC News from Microsoft, RingCentral, 8x8 and Google

Microsoft Copilot expands to 600 businesses, while RingCentral, 8x8 and Google signal UC and AI shifts. Published on UC Today.

Kieran Devlin

Microsoft, RingCentral, 8x8, Google UC news roundup

Microsoft Expands Copilot Preview to 600 Businesses After 'Overwhelming Feedback'

Microsoft is expanding its Copilot Early Access Programme to 600 businesses.

Since March, Microsoft has tested Copilot through invitation-only reviews with 20 enterprise customers. It has advanced that to an initial wave of 600 after "overwhelming feedback" (said Jared Spataro, CVP of Modern Work and Business Applications at Microsoft) from those with preview access.

Satya Nadella, chairman and CEO at Microsoft, said:

This new generation of AI will remove the drudgery of work and unleash creativity. There’s an enormous opportunity for AI-powered tools to help alleviate digital debt, build AI aptitude and empower employees."

Microsoft is also introducing new Copilot AI capabilities to its 365 suite, including OneNote, Outlook and Whiteboard. Microsoft had detailed Copilot's productivity-boosting features for PowerPoint and Excel in its initial announcement in March. It has since revealed the AI-powered solution's integration with SharePoint and Microsoft Viva. This latest news means that Microsoft will have implemented its Copilot AI across its full 365 suite.

A Positive Q1 2023 Earnings for RingCentral while RingCentral for Teams 2.0 Launches

RingCentral began the first quarter of 2023 strongly by exceeding expectations with total revenues of $534 million.

RingCentral's revenue growth reflects an impressive 14 percent year-over-year growth. Key product innovations were also highlighted during the vendor's quarterly earnings call as potential future revenue drivers, with references to RingSense, RingSense for Sales, RingCentral for Teams 2.0, RingCentral for Frontline Workers, and RingCentral Overlay.

Vlad Shmunis, RingCentral's Founder, Chairman and CEO, was optimistic about his company's future. "We had a good first quarter, as we exceeded the high end of guidance across key metrics," Shmunis said. "Our open platform, deep integrations to top third-party applications, 99.999% reliability, global reach, and integrated UCaaS and CCaaS platform continue to resonate with customers and distinguish RingCentral from competitors."

Other positives articulated during RingCentral's earnings call include the business exceeding the high end of guidance for subscriptions, with a revenue increase of 16 percent year-over-year to $508 million. Annualised Monthly Recurring Subscriptions (ARR) were also up.

Meanwhile, RingCentral has also announced RingCentral for Teams 2.0, which is described in RingCentral's announcement as a "next-gen" UC app for calling, faxing and SMS. The solution integrates RingCentral's cloud PBX capabilities into Teams via a fully native experience without requiring another app.

Among the innovative new features to boost productivity are voicemail transcription, call recording, bi-directional presence sync, and unified contact search. The solution can also be coupled with RingCentral's CCaaS solution, RingCentral Contact Centre.

"Many businesses have standardised on Teams for internal collaboration, but when it comes to advanced communications, customers often seek out third-party solutions," said Mo Katibeh, President and COO of RingCentral. "When customer communications are critical, businesses look to RingCentral, given our reputation for 99.999% reliability and our robust and advanced telephony capabilities."

RingCentral for Teams 2.0 will be available in open beta at the end of May and generally available this summer.

Education Sector Needs More Opportunities to Test Preview Stage Products, says College Product Owner

Eddie Nesbeth, a Collaborative Applications Analyst and Product Owner at Davidson College, North Carolina, told UC Today that he would like to see more opportunities for smaller organizations to test preview products, citing Microsoft Copilot's preview access being made available for 20 large businesses.

Nesbeth stressed that the issue was not emotional but practical, emphasising that there are potential applications behind a solution that only smaller or more specialized organizations might discover, helping steer quality assurance. Nesbeth said:

How can we use this to make our stakeholders’ lives easier? We’re thinking about students, we’re thinking about faculty, we’re thinking about staff. We’re not thinking about a sales team. We’re not thinking about it necessarily as CRM. We’re not thinking about client retention. That’s not our issue. We just want the best solution possible for our end users."

In a wide-ranging discussion, Nesbeth also touched on how higher education handled the transition to hybrid working during and after the pandemic, as well as the benefits and challenges of integrating AI-centric solutions into higher education environments.

The most revolutionary AI application for higher ed that Nesbeth had noticed, and was purchasing a solution for — an AI-powered enterprise search. "I think AI will go a long way in helping us get to that point where everything isn’t so fragmented, and all the information can be siloed in one place together," Nesbeth added.

8×8 Ends the Year with a Strong Q4

8×8 finished the financial year 2023 on a high note as its fourth-quarter revenue grew two percent to $184.5 million.

8×8’s $250 million acquisition of Fuze has begun paying off, with $26.9 million of the total quarterly revenue and $111.3 million of revenue for the financial year. The positive quarterly earnings mean 8×8 can continue paying off its debts, reward its shareholders, and invest money into technological innovations.

Samuel Wilson, 8×8 Interim Chief Executive Officer, was optimistic about 8×8’s financial year. “Fiscal 2023 was a year of milestones for 8×8 as we continued to invest in innovation while increasing our profitability and cash flow,” Wilson said. The CEO underlined 8×8’s record service and total revenue, successful integration of its Fuse operations, global coverage extension of its communications platform, and introduction of platform-wide generative AI integration as highlights from the year.

Overall traffic for unified communications and contact centre had been increasing, thanks to 8×8’s global network of carriers and an efficient traffic allocation model for carriers.

Although 8×8 had lower-than-expected revenues the previous quarter, their strong fourth quarter means 8×8 ended the financial year with positive momentum.

Google Announces Duet AI for Google Workspace

Google has launched Duet AI for Google Workspace, a generative AI productivity tool.

Revealed alongside a raft of other AI announcements at this year's Google I/O on Wednesday, including the rollout of generative AI for its core search engine, Duet AI is described as a "generative AI-powered collaborator".

"We are excited to announce Duet AI for Google Workspace, which brings together our powerful generative AI features and lets users collaborate with AI so they can get more done every day," Google Cloud CEO Thomas Kurian wrote in a blog post accompanying the solution's reveal.

Duet AI is ostensibly a rebranding of generative AI tools for Docs and Gmail launched in early access in March. The original AI features enable users to draft, summarise, and reply to emails in Gmail, write and proofread in Docs, auto-generate media in Slides, produce automated insights, analysis and custom tables in Sheets, create custom backgrounds and meeting summaries notes in Meet, and enable workflows in Chat.

However, there are several new features across the Workspace suite, including Duet's full integration across all Workspace apps. Another is the addition of generative AI for Gmail on mobile, titled "help me write", in which AI will draft potential messages and factor in the context of the existing email thread.

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