AI or artificial intelligence has gone through some major developments in 2024 as well as just becoming more ubiquitous. AI powered features are now standard for UCaaS, CCaaS, and customer experience platforms. AI-powered tools are improving nearly every aspect of operations with automated post call and post meeting summaries, real-time transcription and captioning, dynamic call scripting, and more.
There is no shortage of what AI technology can do. For a technology built on (the concept of) constant training and learning to improve various experiences, there also seems to be no shortage of what it gets used for today.
That likely means improving customer and end-user experience, as it appears that AI is about enhancing experiences of all kinds.
Generative AI
ChatGPT, introduced in 2022, has gone through several rounds of improvements, and while it is still used by many enterprises across industries, SaaS companies are starting to develop their own GenAI tools to enhance various business flows, assist employees with emails, text messages, and comments, and more.
The growth and adoption rate of generative AI has continued to be rapid, and the global expansion is particular impressive, with the global AI market set to grow by 38% in 2025.[*]
The rise in GenAI pilot programs has had some downsides as well, as many companies have reported "pilot fatigue". A term that describes the prolonged frustration that occurs when you are training an AI tool that may still have some bugs to work out. SaaS companies are already starting to address this in 2025 by focusing more strategy, production instances, and IT partnerships than on creating LLM (large language model) pilots.
At the 2024 Zoomtopia conference, Zoom announced the launch of AI Companion 2.0. AI Companion is included in every Zoom Workplace plan and provides post meeting and call summaries, highlight reels, and suggested tasks/next steps. AI Companion also leverages GenAI to draft, edit, and reply to emails, as well as to catch users up with a summary when they join a video meeting late or jump on a long message thread.
Microsoft's GenAI tool, Copilot, also went through some updates in 2024. Built upon OpenAI's GPT-4 large language model, Copilot can respond to creative prompts, write code, create spreadsheets and much more. Copilot was also integrated into Microsoft Teams to automatically track key points, action items, and outcomes of video meetings in real time. In 2025, Microsoft will launch CoPilot Analytics, which will enable users to customize prebuilt reports using their business data or create reports with company attributes, longer usage data sets, and more granular controls.
8x8 also added some AI enhancements to its contact center software in 2024, including more supported languages for live web chat and text to speech capabilities.
Business AI: A Growing Trend
Business AI is everything from chatbots used for self-service to IVR - interactive voice response also used for self-service. But business AI goes much deeper than that - as AI can also do things like gather insights from meetings to paint a wholistic photo of a business landscape.
Today, AI can schedule meetings by scanning a group of workers' calendars so they don't have to send near-endless emails back and forth, attempting to find the most optimal time to meet. Beyond that, AI can summarize meetings and even take notes.
It can frame the perfect shot in a virtual business meeting and even ensure quality assurance. That means: training and more occur because AI gets inserted into various business workflows.
For instance, using AI, more specifically, because of a tool called sentiment analysis: a contact center manager can be alerted to a bitter customer and step in to assist the agent in need, advising on the next steps or (to extend) a discount/coupon to rectify the situation.
Automation, Automation, Automation
One of the most prolific ways that AI is helping to improve various business experiences is via process automation.
Essentially: automating (formerly) fully manual processes can save workers time if we consider a business application of process automation. This includes but is not limited to sales orders, accounting reconciliation, data entry, system queries, payroll, employee/vendor onboarding, invoicing; IT support tickets and customer support.
And all this automation, according to a Kissflow survey, is working to enhance and make working a better experience. It found that 94 percent of SMBs perform repetitive tasks. And automating those tasks, (on the other hand) cultivated a more suitable work environment for 90 percent of knowledge workers.
Productivity increased for 66 percent of workers surveyed - according to that same Kissflow survey.
The Future of AI
The future of AI seems to be all about rapid advancement and geographic expansion. And that will not always translate into something that makes humans comfortable. We are already seeing a rising anxiety among artists and writers, as GenAI becomes more advanced. The very nature of AI can be somewhat disturbing because. Most AI technology is built by AI--meaning that humans are unable to even understand how AI does what it does.
And for companies like OpenAI and DeepMind: which is owned by Google's parent company: hope to push the technology beyond what anyone previously thought was possible - eventually processing complex thoughts. As AI advances, it will become more and more important to exercise care and a sense of ethics.
When ethics and technological advancement are in balance, AI can benefit humans greatly. In the SaaS space, AI has been able to automate the most tedious and energy draining tasks such as post call work and scheduling, allowing agents and supervisors to use their talents for more important matters such as relationship building-- a task that AI has still not mastered.
For now, the technology shows no signs of slowing down. The AI market is expected to grow at a CAGR of 36.4% from 2024 to 2030, and be worth 1.81 trillion U.S. dollars by 2030.[*]
