One year after announcing its RingCX contact center platform, RingCentral unveiled four upcoming features infused with artificial intelligence (AI) that address the needs of both contact center agents and supervisors. The features will be available in the US in the coming months through an early access program as well as internationally and through strategic partners in early 2025. However, as such features have already been launched by its rivals, the company is late in introducing them in the market, says GlobalData, a leading data and analytics company.

Gregg Willsky, Principal Analyst, Enterprise Technology & Services at GlobalData, comments: “The four features strike an equal balance between agents and supervisors, with two features addressing needs unique to agents and two features addressing needs unique to supervisors. Both agent-centric features make agents more impactful by helping them deliver a positive customer experience and raising customer satisfaction. The supervisor-oriented features are nicely complementary, allowing supervisors to identify agent roadblocks in real-time and providing insight into agent performance to prevent future roadblocks from occurring.”

Looking at the announcement at a macro level reveals that RingCentral is hewing closely with two important trends as it continues filling out its contact center expertise.

Willsky continues: “The first trend is that contact centers have become permeated with AI. AI is leveraged to provide self-service capabilities, proactive recognition of customer needs, and agents with the knowledge required to fulfil complex customer inquiries. The second trend involves the concept of a ‘contact center’ yielding to the broader concept of ‘customer experience’. Contact centers are converting from agent-centric to including self-service, from reactive to proactive, from transaction-oriented to relationship-oriented, and from generic to deeply personalized.”

While the new features are a valuable addition to RingCentral’s arsenal, the announcement suffers flaws.

Willsky concludes: “RingCentral has garnered almost no differentiation here, as multiple rivals have either already introduced these same features or have them on their near-term roadmaps. And with respect to roadmaps, RingCentral’s is murky with features arriving along a vague timeline. Hopefully RingCentral’s next announcement will contain capabilities that are generally available and unmatched in the market.”