RingCentral acquires AI speech analytics startup DeepAffects

RingCentral has acquired DeepAffects to provide AI speech analytics to its unified communications and get hold of heart platforms.

DeepAffects, a Milpitas, Calif.-primarily based startup, specializes in using AI to review speech from mobile phone or video phone calls. RingCentral shut the deal this thirty day period. There is no timeline for when the DeepAffects attributes will be obtainable for RingCentral prospects.

AI-run speech analytics is an ongoing target for collaboration vendors, said Zeus Kerravala, founder of ZK Exploration. DeepAffects is a pioneer in the area and will aid RingCentral stand out amid its competition, he said.

“Differentiation is likely to come in a whole lot of the state-of-the-art attributes,” Kerravala said. AI is the upcoming large battleground, and “speech technological innovation is a large section of that.”

The facts that DeepAffects collects involves participants’ communicate-to-pay attention ratios, what emotion they were being conveying, and what important matters they discussed. Kerravala said the data could be practical for executives to gauge how successful conferences were being and how people today felt about them.

DeepAffects also transcribes conferences with punctuation, important phrases and tables of contents. It also shows when each and every participant spoke in the discussion.

DeepAffects’ AI versions are “unbelievably abundant” and remarkably precise in speech recognition and reading the speaker’s psychological state, said Kira Makagon, chief innovation officer at RingCentral. The enterprise designs to include DeepAffects into its products, which include its UCaaS suite and standalone video conferencing app Glip Pro+.

Kerravala said DeepAffects’ abilities will make RingCentral’s get hold of heart technological innovation additional “strong.”

In 2015, RingCentral partnered with inContact to provide a get hold of heart to market. In 2018, RingCentral acquired purchaser engagement platform Dimelo, which manages communication channels like SMS, electronic mail, social media and chat applications. A 12 months later, it acquired get hold of heart supplier Join 1st. 

Through the past two yrs, RingCentral has declared various partnerships to assist its UCaaS suite. In 2019, RingCentral partnered with Avaya for Avaya Cloud, and, in February, partnered with Atos on Unify Just one. In August, RingCentral declared a partnership with Alcatel-Lucent Enterprise, a European telecommunications equipment company. 

With the pandemic, RingCentral’s income and inventory price tag have grown considerably. Shares have improved 138.2{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd} 12 months to day, and income has improved 30{d11068cee6a5c14bc1230e191cd2ec553067ecb641ed9b4e647acef6cc316fdd} 12 months about 12 months, to $304 million. The enterprise invested about $133,000 on analysis and progress about the system of the 12 months. 

Kerravala said RingCentral is paying cash on acquisitions and not just acquiring anything in-property, which shows that it is “maturing as a enterprise.”