Telecom Reseller / Technology Reseller News

By Doug Green “We are our partners. We’ve seen what they see, and we built the platform around those real-world problems.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Bill McClain and Jody Gonzalez of UponAI explain how the company is approaching voice AI from a telecommunications-first perspective, giving MSPs a way to add AI agents without forcing customers onto a specific phone platform. UponAI connects to existing PBXs through SIP extensions, allowing AI agents to work inside the customer’s existing telephony environment. That is important for MSPs serving customers with mixed, legacy or evolving communications systems. Gonzalez says many AI voice platforms were built without a deep understanding of telephony. UponAI was designed around the opposite assumption: the AI needs to understand the phone system, its extensions, queues, transfers and call flows. The company describes its platform as a toolbox that MSPs can use to build their own agents. That includes support for integrations with CRM, billing, accounting and other business systems through APIs, MCP, webhooks and low-code or no-code integrations. The platform is also white-label, allowing partners to offer the service under their own brand and determine how they bill their end customers. One difference that has attracted attention is per-second billing. Instead of rounding short calls up to the next minute, UponAI charges partners for the actual seconds used. At larger call volumes, McClain says that can materially affect cost. The company also puts considerable emphasis on call handling. AI agents can see whether someone is already on the phone, perform more sophisticated transfers and return to the caller if the intended recipient is unavailable rather than simply dropping the call into voicemail. “It’s about outcomes,” McClain says. “If the customer’s problem isn’t solved, what good is it?” The company is already applying the technology across different industries. One upcoming deployment involves a medical office where patients will be able to authenticate and address outstanding balances using an AI agent. Another use case supports an operation at JFK Airport handling international calls related to pets. UponAI’s multilingual agents can automatically switch among 10 languages, with additional languages available through separate agents. Gonzalez says the platform also includes pronunciation controls, which can be important for names, cities and industry-specific terminology. For MSPs entering voice AI, UponAI also provides a four-week onboarding process designed to help partners build their first agents and understand the platform well enough to manage future deployments themselves. Visit UponAI.com to learn more or book a demo.  

By Doug Green “We built this as telecom people first — because AI voice has to understand the phone system.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast, Bill McClain and Jody Gonzales of UponAI explain why they believe voice AI needs to be built around real-world telephony, not bolted onto it afterward. The result is a platform designed for MSPs, service providers and enterprises that need AI agents to work across existing PBXs, call queues, extensions, CRMs and other business systems. McClain and Gonzales say one of the biggest differences is control of the call. Rather than sending a call out to a separate ten-digit number and losing visibility into what happens next, UponAI can connect through SIP extensions or SIP trunks and remain integrated with the customer’s communications environment. That makes functions such as transfers far more sophisticated. An UponAI agent can perform cold transfers, warm transfers and what the company calls agentic warm transfers. The AI can contact an employee, explain who is calling and why, listen to the employee’s response, and then decide whether to complete the transfer, send the caller to voicemail or route the call somewhere else. McClain says that mirrors the way people traditionally handled calls inside an office. The platform is also designed to work across multiple phone systems rather than tying the customer to a single vendor. For MSPs serving organizations with mixed or legacy environments, that can be significant. UponAI also emphasizes integrations. Agents can connect with CRM, EHR, billing, scheduling and accounting systems, allowing them to check balances, schedule appointments, send payment links, collect information and trigger workflows without requiring a human for every step. The company says its platform supports hundreds of voices and dozens of languages, along with voice and chat agents, web widgets, SMS, calendar integration, knowledge bases and live call monitoring. Its Agent IQ capability can review an AI agent’s configuration, identify potential problems and run simulations before deployment. Reliability is another focus. McClain says UponAI can fail over between LLMs, voice providers and speech services if a primary provider becomes unavailable. The company also uses per-second billing rather than rounding calls up to the next minute — a difference that can become meaningful at higher call volumes. For MSPs, Gonzales says the platform includes white-label options, partner administration and a structured onboarding program designed to teach partners how to build, integrate and manage their own agents. “We are our partners,” McClain says. “We live this every day.” Visit UponAI.com to learn more.  

By Doug Green “You no longer need to rip and replace those devices. Bring them with you to Webex.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at WebexOne in Austin, James Lee of Inlayer explains how Phonism by Inlayer helps Cisco partners migrate customers from legacy phone systems to Webex while preserving existing handsets, reducing disruption and lowering the cost of the move. Phonism is Inlayer’s flagship unified device management and compliance automation platform. Lee says the platform is designed to help service providers manage devices from multiple manufacturers through a single interface and API, while also automating configuration, provisioning and compliance. For Cisco partners, the opportunity is especially significant in accounts still running legacy Avaya, Mitel and other on-premises systems. Lee says many customers are not staying on older platforms because they prefer them. They are staying because replacing thousands of phones can be expensive, disruptive and time-consuming. Phonism removes much of that barrier. As a Cisco SolutionsPlus partner, Phonism can be included with Webex quotes and renewals, allowing existing SIP devices to be brought onto Webex rather than immediately replaced. Lee describes the strategy as “land, expand and flip.” Partners can land the customer on Webex while keeping existing handsets, expand the relationship by selling other Cisco services, and later replace those devices with Cisco endpoints as they age, break or reach the end of their depreciation cycle. That can also pull revenue forward. Instead of waiting months for a full hardware migration, partners can move the backend platform first and preserve a familiar experience for users. Inlayer is also expanding into presence-based provisioning. Using a small NFC-enabled sticker, an end user can tap the device with a smartphone, authenticate, share location with consent and automatically activate a preconfigured compliant device. That process can also capture identity and E911 location information, while creating cryptographic proof that a person was physically present during deployment. Lee says the approach can simplify self-installation, hoteling and shared workspace environments. The potential savings can be substantial. Lee points to a recent deployment involving a retailer with 700 locations and 7,000 endpoints. He says the migration was completed across four weekends and saved approximately $2 million compared with a traditional replacement approach. For Cisco partners, Lee’s message is simple: legacy hardware no longer has to block a cloud migration. Visit Phonism.com or Inlayer.com to learn more.  

By Doug Green “The AI agents are handling the repetitive questions, and our employees can spend more time on the complex issues.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at WebexOne, George Hantzandreou of New Castle County Government in Delaware discusses how the county is using Webex AI Agents to improve constituent services, reduce wait times and give employees more time for higher-value work. New Castle County serves more than 500,000 residents through approximately 2,000 employees and dozens of locations, including libraries, public safety, community services and other county operations. The county has used Cisco collaboration technology for more than a decade and moved its contact center operations to Webex Contact Center more than two years ago. Its AI journey began with the IT help desk. Facing retirements and a hiring freeze, Hantzandreou says the county deployed Webex AI Agents to handle common troubleshooting questions, voicemail PIN resets and password reset requests while escalating more complex issues to employees. The success of that deployment quickly led to other use cases. In the county’s inclusionary housing program, employees were receiving so many calls that applications from residents in need could take more than three weeks to process. Hantzandreou built an AI-enabled contact center that could answer questions about eligibility, provide information from an approved knowledge base and send application links by SMS. The result has been significant. The AI agent now contains roughly 65% of calls in that program, while application processing time has fallen from more than three weeks to less than one week. Hantzandreou says the county is careful about AI governance, particularly in areas such as housing and benefits. The AI is grounded in approved county websites and documents using retrieval-augmented generation rather than making independent eligibility decisions. Staff also review performance and update the knowledge base when needed. Constituents can always request a human. That is particularly important for seniors, people who may be uncomfortable with AI or anyone dealing with a more complex situation. The technology is also changing the employee experience. Hantzandreou says agents are spending less time answering repetitive FAQ-style questions and more time on complex cases, projects and professional development. In some departments, average handle time has actually increased — something the county views positively because employees are now spending more time on issues that truly require human attention. The county has also extended access beyond normal business hours. AI agents can answer questions 24/7, including evenings, weekends and holidays, while routing unresolved issues to live agents or voicemail when necessary. Looking ahead, Hantzandreou says his focus is increasingly on observability, reporting and post-deployment management as AI handles a growing share of the county’s constituent interactions. Visit Webex.com to learn more about Webex AI Agents and Webex Contact Center.  

By Doug Green “We’re seeing a very different Cisco emerge in this new AI era.” In this Technology Reseller News podcast recorded at WebexOne in Austin, Dave Michels and David Danto of TalkingPointz break down the biggest announcements from the event and what they mean for enterprise customers, partners and the future of workplace technology. Michels and Danto say the broader story is not any one product announcement. It is the way Cisco is connecting networking, collaboration, contact center, AI and workplace intelligence into a more unified ecosystem. One example is Dialog, Cisco’s new agentic CX capability. Michels points to Dialog as a sign of how Cisco is extending AI beyond simple assistants and into longer-running customer interactions where agents can continue working on a problem after the initial contact ends. Danto also highlights Cisco’s growing workplace portfolio, including new AV-over-IP capabilities, intelligent speakers and tighter integration across room technology. The key, he says, is that Cisco is taking technologies that already exist in some form and combining them into a more complete enterprise platform. That matters for large organizations trying to reduce complexity. Instead of stitching together separate vendors for networking, meeting rooms, workplace systems and collaboration, enterprises may increasingly be able to consolidate more of that environment under Cisco. The two analysts also point to Cisco’s growing support for multiple meeting platforms, including Webex, Microsoft Teams, Zoom and Google Meet. For enterprise customers, Michels says one of the biggest questions ahead is how offices themselves will change. Cisco is investing heavily in tools such as Workplace Designer and Cisco Spaces to help organizations understand how physical environments are being used and how they should be redesigned. That could mean using AI to recommend where rooms should be repurposed, where wireless performance needs improvement and how workplaces can better support the way employees actually meet and collaborate. Trust is another major theme. As AI agents gain access to sensitive information and begin taking actions on behalf of users, both Michels and Danto say enterprises will increasingly favor platforms they already trust. That could become a significant advantage for Cisco. Their takeaway from WebexOne is that Cisco is no longer approaching collaboration, networking and AI as separate categories. It is building toward a connected intelligent workplace where those systems increasingly operate together. Visit TalkingPointz.com to read more analysis from Dave Michels and David Danto.