Five9, a provider of the cloud contact center, has agreed to acquire Inference Solutions, a supplier of Intelligent Virtual Agent (IVA) platform.
“IVAs, which are AI-enabled omni-channel self-service solutions, are going to play a major role in the future of customer service as they provide an outstanding service experience, while automating activities that previously required the attention of live agents,” Donna Fluss, president, DMG Consulting.
IVAs utilize artificial intelligence (AI) to communicate like humans, recognizing speech and text, understanding intent, deciphering different languages, and responding in a way that mimics human conversations.
IVAs are rapidly becoming a requirement of the modern contact center and represent a major evolution from touch-tone or voice activated IVRs, which depend upon structured, fixed grammar interactions. IVAs are conversational, more accurate and user-friendly.
IVAs are being viewed as effective digital workers for businesses, resulting in significant savings through increased call deflection rates, better-informed agents, or both.
“We believe adding Inference to the Five9 portfolio accelerates our leadership position in AI while also providing customers with a market leading IVA at a time when customers need efficient real-time assistance,” Five9 CEO Rowan Trollope said.
The acquisition of Inference adds to the company’s footprint with operations in Australia and expands marquee global service provider relationships, such as Evolve IT in Europe, Telstra in APAC, and AT&T in North America.
The Inference platform allows organizations to benefit from the latest advances in speech-enabled Intelligent Virtual Agent technology.
“Intelligent Virtual Agents enable a quicker, more efficient, self-service experience,” said Callan Schebella, CEO and founder of Inference Solutions.
The transaction is expected to close no later than January 5, 2021.
Five9 is an industry-leading provider of cloud contact center solutions. It has more than 2,000 customers worldwide facilitating more than six billion call minutes annually.
Five9 Intelligent Cloud Contact Center solutions provide digital engagement, analytics, workflow automation, workforce optimization, and AI to create more human customer experiences, to engage and empower agents, and deliver tangible business results.
