Recently, Webex launched its new brand and Webex Suite of packaged technologies. For the era of hybrid work, and delivering on a mission to powering a more inclusive future, Webex focuses on five key characteristics for workplace solutions and technology:
Inclusive
Flexible
Supportive
Secure
Managed
Accommodating and exceeding employee and customer experience expectations in this new age of accessibility, productivity and responsibility is a challenge, but a huge opportunity to shape the future of work. When deciding on solutions that enable hybrid work, your business ideally will invest in products and services that fire on all of these cylinders.
How does Ava mobilize and extend the capabilities of the new Webex?
As a Cisco SolutionsPlus Partner, and as a fully-integrated Webex device, Ava Telepresence Robots offer a large opportunity, through intelligence and mobility, for businesses across industries to deliver on all five of these hybrid work essentials. Many notable companies have been and continue using Ava + Webex to help enable hybrid work, some well before pandemic times set in.
When it comes to the five Webex characteristics, Ava's safe and autonomous mobility, user choice, seamless integration into existing frameworks, and workplace adaptability make it a solution from which businesses across industries benefit.
Inclusive: The power of proximity is on both sides of the screen.
As part of a larger mission to power an inclusive future, Webex now offers advanced features like People Focus for optimized views of all meeting participants, expanded real-time translation, and My Voice Only intelligent background noise removal. These inclusive features work to provide equally-valued presence and enhanced experience for all.
With hybrid work, studies suggest one of the largest business concerns is amount and quality of engagement. Designed to close the presence disparity gap and activate more human-centered interactions, Ava Telepresence Robots mobilize Webex to better connect employees and customers, on-site or remote, to people and places. Autonomous mobility and independence give these inclusive Webex features "legs" that empower your users, presenters, and those present in the space, to participate and collaborate more naturally.
Ava in Enterprise: Closing the presence disparity gap at Steelcase. Flexible: Customize, optimize, and mobilize workplace experiences.
All Webex devices are designed to integrate seamlessly with features like Webex Assistant with the new Webex Assistant Skills Platform. This allows you to customize skills and commands to better meet your needs. In addition, expanding the Webex Desk series, the recent acquisition of Slido, and plans to acquire Socio Labs highlight the commitment to flexibility and customization.
Fully-integrated with these powerful Webex features, Ava robots orchestrate more customized meetings and presentations. Often used in conjunction with other Webex devices, Ava Telepresence enables immersive, 360-views, showing multiple perspectives from both people and physical products/equipment.
With practical teleportation, Ava empowers users to go beyond a window view into a space. You're actually in the space with the flexibility to move, interact, and choose perspectives organically. These capabilities allow for more real-feel product demonstrations, collaborations, training, and sales presentations for a variety of workplaces, including: healthcare, manufacturing, and education environments.
Ava in Education: Custom experiences in Verizon's 5G Labs for Future Ready NAF interns
Supportive: Promote health, well-being, and choice around how people work.
Prioritized and proactive health & wellness measures are crucial as we enter the era of hybrid work. Intelligent Webex devices support a safe return to office with capabilities like room booking, wayfinding, capacity alerts, and cleaning notifications. Personal Insights and Thrive have also been added to the Webex wellness stack so individuals can set goals, track progress, and better balance their schedules. All of this functionality is built right in to the Webex Suite and Webex Devices to support where and how your employees choose to work.
As a virtual solution for meetings, tours, sales enablement, and more, Ava Telepresence promotes choice and preference, as well as added assurances around safety. If your employee or customer decides remote or hybrid work better fits their lifestyle, but has a strong desire to be an active participant, teleporting in on Ava can satisfy both intentions. Also, if you feel more safe and comfortable working outside of the office when there's a large gathering, or during flu season, etc., having access to Ava isn't a compromise, it's a proven hybrid solution.
Secure: Enterprise-grade security comes standard.
With hybrid work comes new questions around security and privacy, as workers, customers, and third parties gain access to data in new ways. Delivered with best-in-class security built-in, Webex has designed the industry’s first zero trust security in collaboration, which requires verification before gaining access to resources or data. Webex also offers the industry’s first real-time data loss prevention (DLP) capability to keep classified content from being sent.
As an intelligent, mobile robot with cameras, sensors, Ava's level of security is an FAQ. But it's important to understand the high standard of security and reliability Ava brings to your workplace. Coupled with Webex security requirements, Ava provides enterprise-grade security (including encryption, secure HTTPS management, password protection), making the robot a trusted part of your IT infrastructure. This means no new security requirements for your team to define or implement.
Managed: Get started, use, and scale without friction.
While seamless integration sounds like a cliche, technology that is easily managed directly contributes to your short and long term success. With Webex Control Hub and Webex devices, administrators can manage hybrid workforce devices and push security updates easily and efficiently. Webex is also developing new user satisfaction surveys that will be centralized in Control Hub to give administrators a more prominent voice and a more actionable feedback loop.
Getting Ava up and running doesn't require a significant investment of your time or resources, new tech stack items, or extensive user training--and the Webex integration makes the process even easier. Ava delivers HD videoconferencing of up to 1080p30 video resolution, along with full-fidelity audio and is compatible with any standards-based videoconferencing infrastructure and device.
Intelligent mobility allows Ava to map your space, so once it is online, you can schedule sessions and safely navigate to defined destinations, while the robot continuously applies learnings about your space as it is being used. When sessions are complete, Ava returns itself to the dock to charge. Also, there aren't additional requirements needed when someone new teleports into your space, so you can easily add users as you go.
Ava + Webex is moving hybrid business forward
Collaboration has always been on a continuum: phones to email to social media to video calling to practical teleportation through mobile telepresence—and beyond. And Cisco has always been a leader in bringing collaboration solutions to market.
Ava's partnership with Webex is not only a testament to our shared mission for advancing and improving the workplace, it's further evidence for the longevity of hybrid work. Remote work, in-office work, and everything-in-between work--it all demands and deserves ways to empower people to choose, own, and enjoy where and how they work.
For more information about the Ava Telepresence and Webex partnership and offering, visit our Ava + Webex page.
And to learn more about the new Webex and Webex Suite, read the Webex Blog.