How Microsoft, Zoom, and Cisco Are Approaching AI Differently With Kevin Kieller, enableUC

Kevin Kieller, Co-Founder and Lead Analyst at enableUC, discusses how the major unified communications vendors are taking distinctly different approaches to AI and what this means for IT professionals and organisations.

• How Microsoft, Zoom, and Cisco are each pursuing different AI strategies, from rapid deployment to simplicity-first to proactive ambient intelligence

• Why UCaaS platforms have reached feature parity on core capabilities and what that means for vendor selection

• The shift towards consumption-based AI pricing and the challenge of balancing enterprise cost predictability with encouraging adoption

• Why data and context matter more than having the best model, and the risks when AI assistants access information without clear boundaries

• Google's underappreciated position in the AI and collaboration space despite strong foundations in DeepMind and Gemini

• Why vendors may be over-rotating on agentic AI and the importance of focusing on real business outcomes rather than technology for its own sake

• How AI is reshaping the role of IT admins and why technology professionals need to keep pace with rapid change

• The growing importance of edge AI processing for meeting rooms and video systems

Thanks to Momentum, this episode's sponsor, for their continued support of Empowering.Cloud.