Voice AI Turns Teams Into a Strategic Data Platform (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: So I think we're moving with AI kind of helping you communicate, and I think we are going to go down the road of AI communicating for you in the next two years.

[00:00:15] Speaker 2: Hi, everyone. Welcome to Teams Plus Co-Pilot in Action, a podcast series in which we'll be talking to some of the incredible Microsoft partners who are working with Teams Plus Co-Pilot. My name is Farhan Hussain, and I'm part of the partner-led customer group team here at Microsoft, and in today's episode, we have Matt Batterby from CPO. Welcome to the episode, Matt. Thank you very much for having me on. Absolute pleasure. Thank you. Thank you for coming on the show. Well, for those folks out there who don't know about you and don't know about your company, can you tell us a bit about yourself?

[00:00:46] Speaker 1: Yeah, sure. So yeah, my name is Matt Batterby, based over in sunny North Wales in the UK. I've been around the Microsoft ecosystem for a number of years in different roles, from within Microsoft and into distribution, so always been around it. And now I'm at CPO, which, to sum up CPO, we essentially put voice enterprise-grade calling into Teams with global coverage. We're Azure natives. We have that reliability there and full automation. In plain English, we remove that traditional telco complexity so that partners, our Microsoft partners and customers, can turn Teams into a complete calling platform quickly, reliably, and globally at scale. And I'm sure we'll come onto it in the podcast, but this opens up a ton more opportunities for Microsoft partners than just, great, you're now using Teams voice. There's more to it than that.

[00:01:38] Speaker 2: Awesome. Awesome, Matt. Thank you for that very good introduction. I want to start off with something that I personally have been seeing a lot, and that is related to voice AI. Voice AI, it almost feels like it's taking over the world in some instance. I personally use that a lot. In your opinion, what has changed in the past 12 to 18 months that is now making voice AI so prominent, customers want to use it? What do you think has happened in the last 12 to 18 months?

[00:02:07] Speaker 1: Yeah, you're right. I've looked at some statistics. 78% of businesses are already either using it or piloting voice AI. 82% report positive ROI when they're using voice AI. And I think it'd be very easy to just sum this up and say, the technology has got better. And that is a huge part of it. Now, when you're calling a customer service line, and I think as well, and I could go all over the place with this, but I think human beings are evolving. And what I mean by that is we're evolving into a very impatient species. If you're ordering something online and it takes longer than a day to arrive, it frustrates you. If you get a delivery note and it says it's going to be with you within three to five business days, you contemplate canceling that order because you're like, it should arrive tomorrow. And this is the same when you call a customer service line now, I think as well. And I think now because we're so used to communicating with AI, when you call a customer service line, you're not shocked when you get through to an AI agent. And also the AI agent understands what you're saying. And it's much better than sitting in a queue. I think our ability to sit in a call queue has massively gone down. I think the average time that someone will spend sat in a queue has massively reduced in the last two, three years. I don't want to sit in a queue too.

[00:03:22] Speaker 2: I just want like whenever I call somebody, I'm just like, Hey, I want them to pick up immediately, just get on the line and solve my issue. Exactly. I completely agree with you.

[00:03:30] Speaker 1: Exactly. And I think, if you're sat in a queue, listen to music, you're going to get frustrated. And if the only voice you hear says you're still in a queue, it's very frustrating. Where now, I think the fact that we can speak to an AI agent, either that AI agent handles the problem, and we're very happy with that, or you finally get through to a human being. So essentially, you've been in, let's call it an active queue, makes you feel better. You've had a conversation. And when you get through to a human being, they actually know what your problem is. They know how to help you. They've probably got a knowledge bank on their end that's helping them because you've gone through that AI agent. So yeah, I just think the technology's got better. I think us as human beings have got kind of used to speaking to AI as well. And I think one other thing, and I think over the last few years, obviously, we've gone more remote. We've gone more hybrid working. And I don't know if you do this, but I email myself a lot, or I used to. I used to email myself all the time with ideas and stuff. Yeah. If I'd been out for a run, or I'd walk the dogs and I'd come up with an idea for work, I'd email myself. For a while, I changed to, I'd start a co-pilot chat because that way I wouldn't forget what I actually meant. When I email myself, sometimes I forget what I meant and I'd have a co-pilot chat and it would remind me. Now what I do, if I'm out for a run, you'll sometimes see me just talking to my phone and it's because I'm still doing that co-pilot chat, but I'm doing it through voice because I can rely on it, that it will accurately know what I'm talking about. And then I can come back to it later and I've got that co-pilot chat. So I just think, yeah, the technology's improved and I think our ability to work with it has got better.

[00:05:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Yeah. You pretty much summed it perfectly. Technology has gotten much better. And this was going to be my follow-up question, and that people think co-piloting teams is just about meeting, summaries, chat, productivity. It does all of that. And as you mentioned in your story, co-pilot plays a huge role. You're just talking to it, you're getting the answers for it. And that pretty much seems incredible. Yeah.

[00:05:26] Speaker 1: Yeah, a hundred percent. And one of the richest sources of data that a business has is voice conversations. And that nine times out of 10 is a data silo that co-pilot doesn't have access to. It's all well and good. Me and you have a conversation now and I type up some notes. So if co-pilot has access to that, then I have more sentiment analysis. I have point points, this conversation that maybe you're more interested in than others. Maybe areas that maybe you're a bit confused in what I'm saying. So I need to, if we have a second follow-up call, we need to double down on certain areas. Co-pilot's going to pick up on that like nothing else. And I'll use one example of that. And it kind of comes back to that. You're out for a dog walk and you make a phone call. And I was building a presentation for a partner and I did my usual thing and asked co-pilot when I finished building it. I was like, hey, co-pilot, is this good? Is this ticking all the boxes? Have I done everything that I need to do? Can you shorten any of the text and so on? Co-pilot actually came back with some great suggestions and then also said, basically, Matt, you have completely forgotten the one line that your boss asked you to put in that presentation. And the fact that co-pilot had access to that data because it's all integrated, fantastic. I'd have completely forgot that had I not have had that. So I think voice plays, data is, again, voice, it's not a telephony, it's a data opportunity now. And it forms part of that building strong AI foundations to better adopt co-pilot more powerfully.

[00:06:55] Speaker 2: Exactly. And one of the important things about these models is having the right context. Personally, for me, I use co-pilot a lot at work. And one of the things that it does, sometimes it surprises me because it's connected to my work, it knows some things which I'm like, I didn't realize that.

[00:07:11] Speaker 1: A hundred percent. And I think for partners, this is where, because a lot of partners are looking at having the co-pilot conversation. Obviously, businesses, a lot of these AI initiatives are kind of starting with businesses going, we need to adopt AI. Not really knowing what the end goal is, not really knowing what they want to achieve with AI. They just know it's something they should be engaging with. They should have, they should be helping their employees adopt. So it does make it hard for Microsoft partners. And I think if you add voice into that conversation, the good thing about it is you can really drive faster ROI. Therefore it then leads into stronger, right? You've done great with Microsoft 365 co-pilot because you've got voice integrated in Teams. It's adding more data into co-pilot and it's making co-pilot more valuable. Now we can start to go right, agentic. And we can start to do those things because, and again, I'm probably going to talk about it a couple of times on this session, but with voice in Teams, there's massive cost savings to the end customer, better ROI, better value. And what we're seeing businesses looking to do is then go, right, I've saved all this money. We've started to consolidate what we're doing and we're integrating more. Where can I reinvest? And it's things like agentic AI. So it's opening up more opportunities for partners just by having a very simple conversation about what are they using for a phone? And is it integrated into co-pilot?

[00:08:29] Speaker 2: Yeah, you summed it up perfectly. It's exactly that. And I'm pretty sure CPU deals with a lot of different customers. What are some of the success customer stories that come to your mind when we are talking about Teams co-pilot and things related to this?

[00:08:47] Speaker 1: Yeah. And I think what always stands out for me with success stories, and maybe this is my, let's call it the Microsoft bias. I've always been a big advocate of driving more cross-sell, driving more value into the Microsoft stack. And so when I think of success stories, I always think, you know, it's not just about the voice. It's about where they're unlocking more value in Microsoft and turning that, again, that data silo and turning it into kind of a single connected platform. And one example that really springs to mind is the Museum of Fine Arts. So this was about 650 users from legacy PBX into Microsoft Teams. It happened seamlessly with no disruption, and it led the organization to having voice consolidated into a platform that they were using. They were using Teams every day anyway. They just haven't switched on voice. And we enabled them to, you know, simplify their IT, reduce the number of vendors they were working with, and it made Teams this single communication platform, which, again, long-term, it helps in terms of onboarding new employees. It removes the complexity of onboarding them from a voice perspective, but also people know how to use Teams. Therefore, it speeds up that adoption. So for me, it's just a good example of removing complexity as opposed to just we replace the phone system.

[00:10:01] Speaker 2: That's an incredible story. And like, I'm pretty sure there's other stories out there. You know, one thing that people want to know, and especially partners want to know, is like whenever there's like a success story like this one, the one you mentioned, what was the situation before and after they migrated? What happened? And like, what was like some of the things that I expected or didn't expect? And like, what was like some of the surprises there?

[00:10:26] Speaker 1: As I mentioned, yeah, so they were using legacy PBX, and this meant managing multiple carriers across different countries. And it's quite funny because, again, I don't come from a typical telco background. I come from more the Microsoft background. So when I joined Scipio and started learning all these things, again, these were things that kind of went over my head a bit about dealing with the complexity of different countries. So with Scipio, what that meant was they consolidated into a global voice platform. So consistent user experience everywhere, faster deployments, and changes ongoing as well. Some of the interesting things that kind of happens with these success stories as well is when you've got voice tied into like business applications, so if they're using Dynamics 365, it leads to calls automatically being logged into their CRM system, conversations being more structured data for AI and co-pilot to actually have access to as well. So it allows for things like better forecasting and even better case, faster case resolutions from a customer service perspective as well. So in many cases, one thing that I will have is when there's a sales organization, we're seeing that with sales conversations, the conversions rise in and the velocity of wins is also happening as well. So, again, from an MSP perspective or even a customer's perspective, they might just be thinking, well, we need to evolve our phone system. But they're not actually thinking it could have this massive impact and the data shows that it really does. So for the Museum of Fine Arts specifically, what they saw was things such as faster follow-ups with donors, better insights into actually what was working for them, and then it allowed for them to have more personalized engagements moving forward. And then on the back end, what you see is, you know, voice becomes secure, governed, and auditable. So it saves a lot of headaches further down the road as well.

[00:12:16] Speaker 2: That's really awesome to hear. Shifting the gears a bit here, why do you think some Microsoft partners, they are generally hesitant to enter into this voice AI category? Like what's really stopping them here?

[00:12:28] Speaker 1: When I speak to Microsoft partners, and I've had conversation with many over eight, nine years in the channel, if I'd have, when I first joined the channel, if I'd have asked the Microsoft partner what are they looking to achieve, it probably would have been nine times out of ten that I said net new customer ads. That's almost changed slightly in some way. I think they want to keep their customers. They want to be more sticky to their customers. And I think the hesitation can sometimes be, you know, if it's something that they don't really know, they're not super familiar with, are they going to fail at it and therefore risk a customer relationship? And, you know, partners want to do what they do best. I think risk is a big factor. Yeah. And it's an interesting one. And I think, you know, what I will say, you know, with the work that I've done with Scipio and the research that I've put in and the work that I'm doing with partners, what we are seeing though, and what will hopefully change this kind of mindset, because I think the other thing is they think voice is something someone else does. It's not something that an MSP does. And I think what we're seeing is it actually opens up more opportunities for the partners and not just great. You've now got a new kind of reoccurring revenue per user per month. It's actually opening up more opportunities for what they already do, the services that they are already offer. So whether it's things like support, backup, disaster recovery, and then as they get deeper into the relationship, because they're now offering things like voice, I've driving this value, this ROI, it's also leading to more sort of high growth professional services like cybersecurity, like cloud and infrastructure services and AI and automation. They essentially become that one-stop shop for their customer. And at a time when they're wanting to stay sticky to their customers, that's massively key. So if they're getting voice in, what we're seeing is they drive fast ROI, fast cost savings for the end customer, and they're able to have more strategic advisory conversations around the rest of their technology stack. And actually it's driving more cross-sell, up-sell, more value to the customer, more value to the partner. And it is driving that kind of customer for life story. At a time where customers are looking to consolidate costs, consolidate the number of suppliers they're working with and vendors they're working with, it's key right now. And I think voice opens up those doors.

[00:14:42] Speaker 2: Exactly. Like voice really opens up a lot of doors, as you mentioned. And as we move into the future, I personally think that voice AI is going to play an incredible part. And there's a lot of agents, voice agents, voice AI platforms, I think they're going to become more and more prominent. So for partners, where do you think is the easiest starting point to explore voice AI with teams?

[00:15:10] Speaker 1: Not to sound too salesy, I would say reach out to myself, reach out to Stipio. We are 100% channel focused. So everything that we do is for partners and through partners. So I think where that helps though is, it's hard for a partner to kind of go into a completely new area that maybe they're not familiar with. And believe me, I've kind of lived it now because I've come from that Microsoft MSP background and distribution, and now I'm in this sort of, we'll call it the telephony voice space and voice AI. And it's, I'm still learning, I'm still in that sponge mode. And it's tough. So having someone like Stipio, where we can really simplify that journey and make it easy, get to know you as a partner, get to know your customers in terms of their industries and build that go-to-market strategy. We're helping partners turn this into part of their platform. Again, for years, voice was this separate thing. Now it should be part of the Microsoft 365 platform. It should add more value to that. Businesses are using multiple collaboration tools. And I've lived that as well. I've worked in an organization where we were using Teams. We were using Slack for another area of the business. And then we even had Zoom licenses and it was insane to try and live in that space where you're trying to get hold of people and pull people together and they're all using something different. Yeah, it's very difficult. So if you think about it like that, and you have these different collaboration tools, all of a sudden, now that cost savings starts to really ring true because all of a sudden you can start to bring everything into Microsoft Teams, ProPilot has access to it. It's got access to the data. So for partners, I think working with a partner like Stipio, we're going to enable that kind of education piece on the value a lot better than just focusing on features and functionality. It's what's the value? How is this going to drive growth for you as a Microsoft partner? How's it going to open up the wider stack? How's it going to help you drive more professional services into your customers? And again, increase the value, increase the ROI. So for me, the first step would be like, you can reach out to me, reach out to Stipio and we'll look to help take it away from being a telco opportunity and be more of a platform and data opportunity.

[00:17:21] Speaker 2: Thank you, Matt. That was a perfect way of getting people interested in Stipio as well and directly talking to you. I saw on your LinkedIn, you were talking about some of the securities issues with voice AI. What do you think about that?

[00:17:37] Speaker 1: It's AI all up. And I think it's because people don't know what they don't know. And I think, and I remember when I work in this space, I can't go to a children's birthday party without somebody mentioning technology to me. They hear that I'm in the Microsoft space and they'll say, oh, I use AI as well. And I've had conversations with people and I'm like, I don't want to start talking about cybersecurity at a kid's birthday party, but they'll say to me things like, oh yeah, we use AI in work. And I'm like, oh, cool. Do you use Copilot? No, no, I just use, and they'll name a tool. And I'm like, oh, right. Do you pay for that? No, no, it's just the free version. Okay. So you're using it for research. And they say, no, no, no. I copy and paste my company emails into it. And then I ask it to write a response. I'm like, okay. So you, and it's not, they're not doing it maliciously. They're not trying to leak data from the business into the world. And sometimes they're doing it with Excel spreadsheets, sales data, all these things. And they're not doing it maliciously. They're doing it because they want to save time. They want to do all the right things and they want to be better at their job. And AI is helping them do that, but they're not going about it the right way. So I think when it comes to security with AI, it's, and this is where I always say to MSPs, selling a license doesn't mean you've got an AI practice. A, it's the foundations, things like voice, but it's also the education piece, how to prompt properly, the risks of using shadow AI tools. Those sorts of conversations need to take place on a business's AI journey. Otherwise what will happen, and some of this comes down to, again, the co-pilot, let's say only have an access to less than 30% of the data that it should, what will happen is a user won't be educated on how to use it properly. It won't have the data. They'll try and use it and go, well, I was getting better answers out of that tool I was using last week. So I'm just going to go back to using that. So all of a sudden to an MSP, they go, well, my customer, they're a 40 employee business and all 40 of them have got a co-pilot license, job done, great. And sometimes that's not the case. And actually there's the statistics out there that show that about 40% of those employees will likely also be using something else that they shouldn't be using, but it's hard to police that. And again, it's not malicious. It's down to education. So when it comes to that security, partners play a massive part in that. And sometimes it's just having a conversation and doing some education to the business.

[00:19:56] Speaker 2: Yeah. As you mentioned, education is one of the key things, which I think is going to help a lot of people truly understand what are the benefits, what are some of the issues with AI, especially using these free AI tools, which the company behind it might be training on your personal or company data without you actually even realizing it. So education is going to be a pretty critical part of this entire journey for pretty much everybody. There's a lot of people who are, they're just starting out with AI, especially since it's becoming more and more advanced and specifically voice AI, they just want to keep talking to it, but sometimes they don't really realize that what kind of tool they're using. So it's pretty important, the security aspect, the education aspect, which can help solve a lot of these issues. So you pretty much summed it perfectly. So we have something called a rapid fire round. So I think let's jump into that one. So one word to describe Copilot.

[00:20:55] Speaker 1: Partner. I would say it's my partner right now.

[00:20:59] Speaker 2: I think that's a nice one. One voice AI use case that you think is really underrated.

[00:21:07] Speaker 1: I think internal workflow automation. So being able to use voice as triggers that drives other outcomes and actions. I think that is definitely one that's underrated. Biggest misconception about Teams phone. Someone else will deal with it. I think that is, I think that is a big misconception that partners have. They think, oh, someone else will deal with that without realizing that that someone else could maybe deal with everything else that they deal with everything else that you're dealing with today and take your customer from you. One industry that will move the fastest with voice AI. I would say like customer service and contact centers across all industries. In terms of specific industries, I think it might be those ones like healthcare, legal, certain industries like that potentially drive a bit quicker.

[00:21:58] Speaker 2: One prediction for AI powered communication in the next two years.

[00:22:02] Speaker 1: So I think we're moving with AI kind of helping you communicate. And I think we are going to go down the road of AI communicating for you in the next two years.

[00:22:15] Speaker 2: So well, Matt, thank you so much for coming on to the podcast and for partners and customers who want to know more about CPO and about you, where should they go next?

[00:22:25] Speaker 1: Yes, they can reach out to me directly on LinkedIn or my email address, matt.batterby.cipio.io. But yeah, reach out on LinkedIn. I'm forever posting content of more full leadership content kind of around what MSPs can be looking at Microsoft partners. So yeah, reach out to me on there. Drop me an email. Go on to the CPO website, cpo.io and fill out the form and we can engage. But yeah, just just reach out and we can continue the conversation.

[00:22:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you again, Matt, for coming on to the podcast. And as always, I will see you in the next episode. Thank you. Bye.