Google Expands AI Security and Contact Center Options

On Sep. 24, Google announced new features and expanded availability of Google Gemini for workplace users.

Workspace Business, Enterprise, and Frontline plans will now include the standalone Gemini app. Google is doubling down on AI for customer service with the latest models and new features for contact centers. Additionally, Workspace Business edition customers will gain access to security advisor, a chatbot for security administrators.

Google Gemini is available internationally in over 230 countries.

Google adds administrative controls to business subscriptions

Workspace Business, Enterprise, and Frontline users can now access the standalone Gemini app with integrated administrative settings and data protection.

Previously, they had to switch to personal accounts to use the public version of the AI. Now, an admin console enables users to set restrictions on how Gemini handles prompts and retains generated responses. Gemini will not use customers’ organizational data, prompts, or generated responses to train Google’s models.

This expansion to the Business, Enterprise, and Frontline plans is separate from the Gemini for Workspace add-in. The add-in integrates Gemini directly into Gmail, Docs, Drive, and other Workspace applications.

SEE: Google Gemini and ChatGPT have slightly different capabilities.

Conversational AI enhances contact center tools

Contact centers are becoming a popular experimental ground for generative AI. Google is among the companies betting on generative AI as a more flexible alternative to traditional phone trees.

Customer Engagement Suite with Google AI, a new version of Contact Center AI Insights, is intended for omni-channel contact centers. The AI applies Gemini 1.5 Flash to:

• CRM applications.
• Workforce management applications.
• Telephone systems for customer service.

Gemini 1.5 Flash adds more capabilities to the product previously known as Contact Center AI Insights by providing deeper, more actionable insights. The newer AI model is capable of building KPIs, recommending inquiry topic categories to prioritize, and recommending how operations managers and quality assurance teams can improve services.

Quality AI, another new feature, automatically assigns a score to every customer interaction. This ties into the contact center as a service (CCaaS) functionality in the Customer Engagement Suite, which unifies customer experiences across web, mobile, voice, email, and apps.

To access the new features, Google Contact Center AI customers can reach out to sales for pricing details for the Customer Engagement Suite.

Conversational Agents: Another way to answer customer questions

AI agents are seen as a possible way to realize ROI from generative AI. In the Customer Engagement Suite, Google provides Conversational Agents. These AI agents can answer some customer questions and perform automated actions such as verifying a customer’s identity.

Agent Assist, a separate generative AI tool for customer service representatives, gained the following features on Sept. 24:

• Generative knowledge: Offers search query suggestions based on the conversation.
• Coaching: Provides your organization’s information to customer-care representatives to improve response accuracy and process adherence.
• Summarization: Generates recaps for customer care representatives after each call.
• Smart reply: Offers suggested responses.
• Live translation: Supports real-time translation in more than 100 languages.

Security advisor summarizes possible pain points for IT admins

The new security advisor feature, intended for threat and data protection, is an AI-written email periodically sent to IT administrators with insights from across their organization. The email will provide steps the administrators can take to enhance security.

Security advisor will be available to Workspace Business edition customers “over the next few weeks,” Google said on Sep. 24.

Gemini for Workspace receives industry certifications

Lastly, Google announced Gemini for Workspace has been certified for some industry security and privacy standards, including:

• SOC 1/2/3.
• ISO 27001.
• ISO 27701.

Competitors to Gemini for Workspace

Google’s approach with Gemini bears notable similarities to Microsoft’s integration of Copilot into its security and 365 suites. Microsoft launched its Copilot for Security in March.

Some of the capabilities Gemini has for professionals can also be performed by ChatGPT Enterprise, although Google Gemini integrates more closely into existing call center infrastructure. Salesforce and other contact center AI companies may provide similar services for AI-generated answers during calls.

More Google Gemini news is expected later this week

Google will hold an in-person demonstration around the theme of Gemini at Work in New York on Sept. 26. We’ll report back with hands-on impressions.