MWC USA Playbook Volume 3: What to Watch at the Intersection of AI and CPaaS
Communications Platform-as-a-Service solutions (CPaaS) have made a name for themselves as a critical business enabler for real-time communication features across voice, video, messaging, and more. Offering scalable, flexible and cost-effective cloud-based solutions for integrating next-gen communications into apps, CPaaS is becoming a mainstay of modern business interfaces, empowering advanced customer support options, two-factor authentication protocols, appointment reminders and other customer messages alongside marketing campaign options.?
However, as we now find ourselves in an AI-driven age, we see CPaaS undergoing an evolution that delivers both added advantages — and challenges. Yes, the path toward successful AI-empowered CPaaS capabilities (and other artificially intelligent applications) is complex, which makes it no surprise that AI is a trending topic at the upcoming Mobile World Congress event in Las Vegas next week.?
Since the event is right around the corner, we figured there’s no better time to jump into this topic and start the conversation. So, here’s what we know about the intersection of AI and CPaaS as it stands.
The Current State of AI and CPaaS
Twilio recently reported that 58% of surveyed nonprofits are using AI with their CPaaS solution, and 47% of B2C businesses in the private sector are implementing AI as well. Further, 68% of nonprofits are using AI to analyze end-user data to understand their needs and pain points, compared to 64% of B2C brands.?
Regardless of sector, the data (and headlines) tell us that AI is here to stay. This trend of AI adoption makes sense when we consider the impact it can have on CPaaS’s existing benefits across customer engagement, agility and deployment speed and customization. Brands and providers of all shapes and sizes are using CPaaS to their benefit:
When you add in AI’s intelligent routing capabilities, sentiment analysis and smart monitoring opportunities, automated quality assurance services and predictive analytics, these benefits are amplified significantly — and any associated burden on teams is reduced.
Yes, as we all know now about AI: Where there is opportunity, there is also the potential for missteps, malfunctions and unintended consequences. The addition of AI into communications has, in many cases, opened up the door for even more sophisticated fraud — and when we consider baking AI into our CPaaS interactions, the consequences of misuse or mistakes on customer trust and engagement can be devastating.?
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Right now, as we consider even more ways to strengthen our customer interfaces with AI, we also need to be ready to defend against any missteps. Having verification, vetting and anti-fraud measures in place will be key for keeping interactions safe from bad actors — and data is any business’s best friend here.?
Intelligent CPaaS’s Implications in the Business’s Mobile Ecosystem
Generating and protecting trust means maintaining absolute visibility and awareness throughout the evolving mobile and communications ecosystem throughout the customer journey — from onboarding and entry into the ecosystem to ongoing management and beyond. Every customer and individual contained within a business messaging or communications ecosystem comes with their own digital identity footprint, and this data is a goldmine both for supporting tailored interactions and for ensuring security. However, the data has to be validated and vetted effectively to be released upon.?
This is where data-based Number Intelligence-as-a-Service options become an organization’s secret weapon. We’ve built a portfolio of world-leading number lookup, portability, validation and risk services that, as part of a comprehensive business strategy, can make the difference between a secure ecosystem and an at-risk one. For example, our nnSR? (netnumber Services Registry) enables CPaaS providers and messaging hubs to route their SMS and MMS traffic accurately and cost-effectively to North American phone numbers. The nnSR? helps identify telephone numbers with special message routing properties. Meanwhile, our Number Check service offers real-time phone number intelligence to help prevent a multitude of fraud types by evaluating the likelihood of a phone number anywhere in the world being valid or invalid.?
For CPaaS providers and other enterprises looking to elevate their communications with AI, staying ahead of evolving requirements and staying in-the-know will be instrumental to avoiding added complexity — and fraud potential.?
Of course, added digital identity management services are the cherry on top of these routing, trust and provisioning services — and for more on that, you might just have to wait and see what we’re about to share with the Mobile World Congress crowd in Vegas…
In the meantime though, we’d love to know what you’re thinking about in the realm of AI and CPaaS — or AI in communications as a whole. We know we have plenty of thoughts, so if you’d like to dive deep on this topic, be sure to find us on site at Mobile World Congress.?
Limited spots remain to book a meeting with our team in Vegas. Click here for more details and to get on the coveted MEF Meet-up Vegas attendee list to join us at Ghostbar for an event hosted by our team. See you there!