There is no doubt that AI has transformed the landscape of workplace collaboration and customer experience. The impact of AI was on full display at the recent Enterprise Connect conference in Las Vegas. There, advances in AI were at the forefront of almost every vendor’s conversation. Even vendors like Google and Microsoft, which were noticeably absent, chose to use Enterprise Connect week to make AI announcements focused on their office productivity suites.
But the tone of recent announcements and initiatives reflects a subtle shift in how buyers view AI. Buyers are less attracted to AI hype and instead want to understand its real-world benefits.
Current state of AI implementation
of metrology AI for business success: 2025-26A global survey of approximately 1,100 organizations found that AI adoption rates are high, with nearly all companies using AI in some form. Despite this, ROI remains somewhat elusive, with only 54.2% saying the benefits of AI outweigh the costs. Businesses are now realizing that the greatest value of AI lies in improving employee productivity, which in theory can lead to tangible operational cost reductions, as well as increased customer service metrics and revenue.
“Show me the money!”
As I write this, news breaks that OpenAI has announced that it will be discontinuing its Sora video generation tool due to lack of revenue. Sora certainly had a “cool” factor, filling many of our social media feeds with an endless stream of occasionally funny videos, but OpenAI was unable to turn it into a revenue stream worthy of its billion-dollar investment.
This same perspective extends to businesses. IT and business leaders often want AI to deliver real-world results specific to their industry. AI marketing and product approaches that only promote new features are not suitable for beginners. Instead, as we saw with Enterprise Connect, vendors are offering specific AI-powered solutions that deliver real business value.
Examples include:
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NiCE’s agent AI innovations enable agents to automatically identify and act on business improvement opportunities based on signals identified within customer conversations.
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RingCentral’s AI Receptionist (AIR) Pro has advanced features that not only improve companies’ ability to generate leads and reduce reservation cancellations, but also enable them to differentiate their customers through improved customer service.
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Zoom announced Agentic AI 3.0, which enables workflow automation across the front and back offices, allowing individuals to turn meeting notes into actionable documents.
In each case, these AI initiatives are designed to help customers automate and optimize their work by leveraging AI as a force multiplier, which in theory should generate measurable ROI.
Verticalization of AI
Another area highlighted at Enterprise Connect was the move to industry-specific AI solutions by vendors like GoTo and RingCentral (both had healthcare-related announcements in conjunction with the HIMSS Healthcare Technology Conference held next door to EC. In both cases, vendors are applying AI to optimize healthcare-specific workflows, which also offers the potential for measurable ROI).
But wait — that’s not all
Beyond Enterprise Connect, there were two other notable announcements. The theme of each session was “What can AI do for me now?” Google has brought new AI capabilities within Workspace designed to speed up document creation by allowing you to interact with Sheets, Docs, and Slides in natural language. Google’s move is a response to the growing adoption of AI-first content creation tools such as Canva and Gamma, both of which significantly reduce the time and expertise required to create high-quality content.
Microsoft also made big announcements of Copilot Wave 3, which adds similar content creation capabilities and agent management, and a new bundled E7 license that combines Microsoft 365 E5, Copilot, agent management, and security into one service. While the new license is not a productivity increase per say, it could potentially reduce implementation costs for customers looking to leverage Copilot to improve productivity.
Precautions
While there may certainly be benefits to letting AI optimize workflows, the real value lies in leveraging AI to optimize the design of the workflows themselves. Simply automating poor and inefficient processes does not provide the value of optimizing processes in the first place. Although the term “business process optimization” is certainly old, AI promises to deliver measurable benefits by reworking processes when necessary.
Towards an open future
Finally, AI is only truly beneficial when it is part of an open ecosystem and not siloed. An AI agent or chatbot must be able to access both data within directly connected applications and third-party data sources via MCP and/or A2A protocols. Fortunately, vendors are increasingly moving in this direction, improving the ability of AI to deliver value.
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About metrology: Metrigy is an innovative research and advisory firm focused on rapidly changing areas such as workplace collaboration, digital workplaces, digital transformation, customer experience, and employee experience, as well as several related technologies. Metrigy provides technology providers and enterprise organizations with strategic guidance and informative content backed by key research metrics and analytics.
