Cisco To Buy Voicea To Enhance Webex Videoconferencing Platform

Cisco announced its intent to acquire privately-held US company Rizio, which trades as Voicea, as part of its drive to add artificial intelligence-based features for its Webex videoconferencing platform. Voicea has developed an Enterprise Voice Assistant (EVA) collaboration service that combines AI capabilities and Automated Speech Recognition (ASR).

For Webex, the integration of EVA fits into Cisco’s vision of “cognitive collaboration”, which aims to help users become more productive and remove tedious tasks. With EVA, for example, workflows can be pushed automatically through voice commands into systems such as Salesforce, and meeting highlights can be captured and shared among participants.

The acquisition is expected to close in the first quarter of Cisco’s fiscal year 2020. No financial details were disclosed.―Telecompaper