UC Today

Only 7% of business leaders report having established ROI from AI, according to a recent KPMG survey. So what's going wrong?

In this episode of UC Today, Christopher Carey sits down with Adam Hadley, Founder of AI consultancy QuantSpark, to unpack why AI adoption is falling short – and what companies can do differently.

They discuss:
🔵 Why "magical thinking" is setting businesses up to fail
🔵 The importance of systems thinking and process mapping before deploying AI
🔵 Where AI budgets are actually going – and whether it's the right spend
🔵 The rise of open-weight models as a cost-effective alternative
🔵 What good AI implementation really looks like, with concrete examples

If your organisation is struggling to move from AI experimentation to measurable results, this is a must-watch.

For more Unified Communications & Collaboration Tech News visit https://www.uctoday.com/

In this introductory episode, co-chairs Lauren Croxson and Natalie Strange outline the origins of the Women in Telecoms group, reflect on its growth, and explain the purpose behind the new series. 
The conversation explores why visibility, support, and honest dialogue remain important across the telecoms sector, particularly as the industry continues to address issues around representation, leadership, and career progression.

The episode also previews the topics that will be explored throughout the series, including:

- Mentoring
- Future talent in tech
- Leadership journeys
- The gender pay gap
- The challenge of balancing career development with caring responsibilities.

Founded to create a stronger support network for women in telecoms, the group has grown from a small community into a wider industry platform that encourages connection, knowledge-sharing, and professional development.

The new podcast series extends that mission by bringing together voices from across the sector to share real experiences and perspectives.

As discussed in the opening episode, the series is intended to go beyond surface-level success stories, instead focusing on the lived realities of working in telecoms today.

Future episodes will feature a range of guests and viewpoints, with discussions designed to offer practical insight and open up important conversations for professionals across telecoms and wider enterprise technology.

In this episode of UC Today, host Kristian McCann sits down with Chris Scimone, Director, Solutions Architecture & Engineering at New Era Technology, to answer one of the biggest questions facing organizations investing in AI for customer experience: where should you start? 

Many contact centers understand the potential of AI, but identifying the right first use case can be challenging. Should organizations focus on customer-facing automation? Agent assistance? Self-service? And how do they ensure early deployments can be expanded upon as the operation scales? 

Chris shares practical guidance drawn from real-world deployments, explaining why successful AI initiatives often begin by supporting agents behind the scenes before expanding into broader automation.  

Key discussion points: 

• How organizations can identify the best first use cases for contact center AI 

• Why AI assistants are often the ideal starting point for adoption 

• The metrics that matter most when measuring AI success and customer impact 

• How to scale AI deployments while maintaining visibility, performance, and governance 

Next steps: 

Visit New Era Technology to identify the biggest friction points affecting customers and agents

In this episode of UC Today, host Kristian McCann is joined by Chris Harris, EMEA Technical Director for Data and Application Security at Thales to discuss why enterprises need to begin preparing for the quantum era now. 

The discussion goes beyond the hype surrounding quantum computing to explain the very real challenges.If you're responsible for cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, compliance, risk management, digital transformation, or technology strategy, this conversation offers practical guidance on where to start, and why waiting could prove far more expensive than preparing.

Key discussion points include:
🔵 Why "steal now, decrypt later" attacks mean sensitive data is already at risk—even before practical quantum computers exist.
🔵 Which industries, systems, and types of information should be prioritized for post-quantum protection.
🔵 How organizations can discover where cryptography exists across their infrastructure and build a realistic migration strategy.
🔵 Why crypto agility, vendor collaboration, and phased modernization will define successful quantum security programs.

Visit UC Today for the latest news, analysis, and interviews covering the future of enterprise IT and communications.

Women in Telecoms Podcast: Breaking Barriers and Building Careers

The latest Women in Telecoms podcast explores what it means to build a career in a sector where women can still face barriers around visibility, confidence, and progression.

Hosted by Women in Telecoms co-chair Lauren Croxson, this episode brings together:

- Hayley West - Business Development Specialist, Magrathea Telecommunications
- Will Goodhall - Wholesale Director, Elevate Wholesale
- Avon McKernan – Senior Business Partner Account Manager, Virgin Media 02 Business

Together, the panel shares honest perspectives on career development, leadership, mentoring, and the challenges women can encounter in the telecoms industry.

One key topic is the role of allyship. Avon reflects on an early career experience where a customer asked to speak to a man rather than her. Her manager responded by backing her knowledge and expertise.

The conversation highlights how managers, colleagues, and mentors can help women build confidence and make their voices heard. This support matters at every stage of a career, particularly for those entering a male-dominated industry.

The guests also discuss the pressure women can feel to work harder to prove their expertise. Haley shares her experience of moving from a support role into business development, while Avon describes stepping into new roles despite doubts about whether she was fully ready.

Common themes include:

- Building confidence through supportive leadership  
- Taking opportunities before feeling 100% qualified  
- Finding mentors and trusted colleagues  
- Developing skills through real-world experience  
- Recognising and challenging imposter syndrome  

The message is clear: career growth does not require perfection. It requires a willingness to learn, speak up, and trust the experience that has brought you this far.

Is AI fundamentally changing how leaders develop – and what does that mean for the humans doing the leading? In this episode, Christopher Carey is joined by Philip Huthwaite, CEO at learning tech firm 5app, to explore how artificial intelligence is reshaping leadership development.

From whether measurable soft skills actually make better leaders, to how instinct-driven leaders adapt to a data-driven world, Philip shares his perspective on where workplace leadership is heading. They also discuss the growing anxiety around AI adoption, the impact of hybrid work on informal feedback, and who is ultimately responsible when AI shapes how someone grows as a leader.

For more Unified Communications & Collaboration Tech News visit https://www.uctoday.com/

AI is moving beyond meeting notes – and into the work that happens next.

In this UC Today interview, Christopher Carey speaks with Global Tech Futurist Daniel Burrus about the rise of AI that can capture decisions, connect context across collaboration tools, schedule meetings, coordinate follow-up, and help teams move from conversation to execution.

But as AI gains more autonomy, where should organizations draw the line?

Burrus discusses why agentic AI needs meaningful constraints, the risks of an AI-first approach to workplace productivity, and why the most sustainable model is human-first AI: using intelligent agents to augment people, strengthen collaboration, and preserve trust.

In this interview:
🔵 Why every workplace conversation could become “organizational intelligence”
🔵 How AI can turn meeting outcomes into coordinated action
🔵 The benefits – and limits – of autonomous scheduling and workflow coordination
🔵 Why governance, testing, and guardrails matter for agentic AI
🔵 The trust risks of using AI primarily to cut headcount
🔵 Why AI should augment human roles, not replace them

For more Unified Communications & Collaboration Tech News visit https://www.uctoday.com/

In this episode of UC Today, host Christopher Carey speaks with Viktor Samoilenko, CEO and Co-Founder of Aspichi – a Ukrainian company using virtual reality and artificial intelligence to address the mental health crisis caused by the ongoing war.

Viktor explains how Aspichi's platform, Luminify, allows a single therapist to run up to 30 simultaneous VR therapy sessions, the clinical methods behind it, and how the company is now expanding into the US market – targeting assisted living facilities, nursing homes, and acute care settings. He also shares his vision for Aspichi becoming a global mental health infrastructure layer over the next five years.

For more Unified Communications & Collaboration Tech News visit https://www.uctoday.com/

As AI-enabled smart glasses become more common, where could restrictions emerge next?

Christopher Carey is joined by Beth Fulkerson, Partner and Chair of the Privacy, Data and Cybersecurity Practice at CM Law, to discuss New York’s statewide courtroom rule and what it signals for smart glasses in other sensitive settings.

Beth explains why the New York policy builds on longstanding restrictions on recording devices, while addressing a practical challenge: smart glasses can record discreetly and are difficult to monitor in use. The conversation also considers the legal and operational issues organisations face when employees or visitors wear smart glasses around confidential information, trade secrets, personal data, or private spaces.

The discussion explores whether hospitals, secure workplaces, and other high-privacy environments may introduce similar restrictions; how employers can balance privacy and confidentiality with potential accessibility needs; and how existing recording, surveillance, biometric-data, trade-secret, and privacy laws may apply to AI-enabled wearables.

Watch to learn:

Why New York’s court rule focuses on enforcement of existing no-recording principles
Why smart glasses create new workplace privacy and confidentiality concerns
Which sectors may be most likely to restrict smart glasses next
How hospitals could balance clinical benefits with patient privacy
What employers and venues should consider when setting wearable-device policies
Why legal responsibility for unlawful recordings is context-specific

In this episode of UC Today, host Kristian McCann is joined by Devashri Datta, a Senior Security Architect at NVIDIA, but appearing in a personal capacity as a researcher, to explore why organizations need to rethink how they govern AI-powered tools.  

Devashri explains why Software Bills of Materials (SBOMs) must evolve to account for AI models, training data, agent behavior, and new attack methods such as prompt injection and data poisoning. 

From Microsoft Copilot and Slack integrations to autonomous AI agents capable of accessing sensitive business systems, this conversation explores the hidden risks enterprises face as AI adoption accelerates. Watch to understand why AI governance needs to move at machine speed and why treating AI like “just another tool” could leave organizations exposed. 

Key topics discussed include: 
🔵 Why traditional SBOMs struggle to capture AI-specific risks, including model weights, training data, RAG pipelines, and AI behavior.  
🔵 How AI agents introduce new security challenges through prompt injection, data poisoning, excessive permissions, and access creep.  
🔵 Why organizations need new governance approaches, including AI-focused vulnerability tracking, threat modeling, and machine-speed security controls.  
🔵 How businesses can build stronger AI security strategies while keeping humans involved in critical decisions.  

Share your thoughts in the comments and subscribe to UC Today for more conversations on cybersecurity, AI, collaboration, and enterprise technology.

For more Unified Communications & Collaboration Tech News visit https://www.uctoday.com/