Artificial Intelligence (AI) is the ability of a computer to perform tasks like a human being. It has several applications including software, simulation and robotics. American computer scientist John McCarthy came up with this name “Artificial Intelligence” in 1955. There has been significant work in AI since the 1960s, but it has never been more popular than today. Advances in the field of data-driven science combined with the availability of cheap computing resources has propelled the advancements in AI and development of new algorithms in this area.

So how does this relate to cloud communications? 

Over the past decade, more enterprises are starting to move their communications to the cloud to streamline their operations and optimize business communications for maximum revenue impact. Combining AI and cloud communications is a perfect marriage to achieve higher efficiencies, automation, rapid innovation and better customer experience.

In the 2017 Economist Intelligence Unit report, Artificial Intelligence in the Real World, 75% of 200+ business executives surveyed said AI will be actively implemented in their companies within the next three years.

According to Constellation Research, the AI market will surpass $100B by 2025.

Here are three use cases where combining AI and cloud communications can improve the overall customer experience.

AI is used extensively in developing voice-enabled assistants like Amazon Alexa, Microsoft Cortana, Apple SIRI or Google Home to perform tasks and get answers. Integrating unified communication platforms and voice-enabled assistants through an intelligent AI engine can automate tasks that might otherwise require human intervention. Based on a specific trigger, the AI engine could instruct the voice assistants to communicate on a specified unified communication channel to deliver a message. For example, in an Enterprise customer that has shopping outlets, AI engine could detect the product count and automatically send a message to the supplier for fulfillment.

Adding AI to cloud-based customer engagement/contact center applications can provide valuable insight into analytic data that can help companies solve customer issues in a much shorter amount of time. Machine learning can be used to deliver critical contextual information to the agents and their supervisors to help them make better decisions in their workflow. When an enterprise customer calls one of the vendors, the vendor agent can pull all the different forms of communication streams from the customer. This can be quite powerful for the agent to have all the relevant pieces of information at their disposal to solve a customer issue quickly.

In the near future, AI can be a game changer for in-vehicle communications. For example, AI systems can detect when the vehicle is in motion and act as a personal assistant for handling the incoming messages and calls without interrupting the driver. Along the same lines AI enabled systems can be used with voice activation to perform simple tasks like sending messages, payments, etc.

These are exciting times. By combining the power of AI with cloud communications, the possibilities to innovate are endless. Companies, who take advantage, will improve the efficiency of their business processes and significantly enhance the customer experience in ways they never before imagined.

This story originally appeared on Broadsoft.com.