Conversational IVR Technologies in the Workplace

When many of us think of IVR (Interactive Voice Response) our first emotion is likely one of frustration. Until recently, the average person's experience with an IVR system would likely be via their phone or with an automated attendant on a customer service line. You can probably already hear yourself repeating words or phrases over and over again and being completely misunderstood or worse--met with silence from the other end.

Today, public perception is improving, with devices and services like Amazon's Alexa and Echo and Google's Assistant growing in popularity and usefulness at rapid pace. And while their proliferation into homes has precipitated an explosion in the number and variety of Internet of Things (IoT) appliances and accessories, extending their versatility into the workplace is a trickier proposition. Issues like content security and privacy become amplified when a device in a conference room is sending proprietary conversations over the internet.

So where does that leave us? How can we leverage the benefits of IVR integrations in workplace productivity and collaboration while also ensuring that our private conversations aren't shared or intercepted by others? Thankfully, Amazon has addressed much of these concerns with their Alexa for Business platform. With an expanded API and the Alexa Skills Kit, organizations can build custom skills and integrations to enhance their workflows. A centralized management console allows administrators to provision devices, manage users, and integrate with rooms and presentation systems. Meanwhile, unlike the consumer Alexa services, all voice recordings and transcripts are completely private and can't be viewed by anyone inside or outside the organization. It's exciting to imagine the impact this platform can have on audiovisual, communication and unified collaboration systems within the workplace.

Augmented Reality and AV

Augmented Reality is an emerging technology straight out of science fiction, primed to be one of the next revolutions in computing and changing how we interact with objects and the world around us. Check out the video below from Microsoft--one of the companies leading the development in the AR space--for a quick demonstration one of the many applications for this exciting new technology. It gets our creative juices flowing to think about how AR could be used to enhance areas like team collaboration, remote support, design, manufacturing, and more. The impact it will have on the AV industry will be enormous.

3D Printing A House

I'm sure most of us have heard of or have even seen a 3D printer. The technology has advanced over the last 30 years from prototyping basic plastic shapes to today enabling companies like SpaceX to print complex metal parts for rocket engines. What you'll see in the video below is the next step in the evolution of 3D printing technology: printing a house! While it is still in the prototyping/test phase, it will be interesting to see if or how this technology will affect the way we construct the homes, buildings, and structures of the future.