“We don’t recruit people who know telephony necessarily, we recruit great software engineers, regardless of programming language. If you’ve learned one language you can learn another. The most important thing is modern web/cloud development experience.”
Cloud telephony has taken centre stage with enterprises moving to the cloud at a steady pace. The technology now powers IVR solutions, automated calls, and streamlined communication across the organizational hierarchy. Additionally, the maturing of artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) has powered low latency, mobile-only solutions, secure communication channels, and faster updates.
In an interview with Toolbox, Brian Peterson, Senior Vice President of Engineering at Dialpad, talks how the TalkIQ acquisition helped Dialpad in building AI-driven voice analytics solutions, how 5G is eradicating long standing issues in VoIP, the key skills required for tech pros in the industry, and three exciting trends to watch out for in cloud telephony.
Key Takeaways From This Tech Talk Interview:
The benefits of a cloud-first approach in today’s times
Role of 5G and AI in internet-based communications
Top skills required in cloud telephony sector
Why microservice adoption will grow in enterprises
Here’s the edited transcript of the interview with Brian Peterson:
Brian, can you share how you, Craig and John got together and why you decided to set up Dialpad? What factors were on top of your mind prior to the setting up of the company?
With all three of us coming from Google Voice, we witnessed first hand what was being done with a consumer product that we saw as also having a huge opportunity for business. At the time, the PBX landscape was all about different pieces of hardware among multiple offices, managed by different software. The smartphone was gaining in popularity for consumer use, SaaS products were popping up left and right, and more and more functions were moving to the cloud. However, we felt like the business phone system was the last piece to make the move, even though it made the most sense.
Before modern cloud architecture like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud Platform, the existing cloud PBX market was based on old and outdated technology. There was this huge, basically untouched market, and we were smart enough to take the chance.
Dialpad is going to turn 10 later this year. Having nurtured the company as the VP of engineering for these many years, what were the major lessons you learned around growing the business, embracing new technologies, and surviving the competitive cloud telephony industry?
It has been a fast 10 years, and we have continuously picked up the pace. To maintain innovation and stability, one of our biggest changes is to have more frequent releases. In the traditional phone world, you would see releases months apart. With our software-first advantage, we have weekly releases for everything, continually adapting our cloud technology.
By focusing on the cloud over telephony, we make our system act more like a modern web app, as opposed to a traditional phone system. Everything is consistently in sync and in real time, across all devices.
The more traditional platforms that are telephony-first have products that are not synchronized, and it's made very apparent to users with latency and legacy technologies. We are also able to build in true native real-time integrations with the modern cloud systems customers are already using, like GSuite and Office 365. At Dialpad, we are going at a great pace and hope to continue for years to come.
Where do you see the cloud telephony landscape heading in the next five years? Which significant milestones did the industry cross in the last few years?
Previously, the biggest disadvantage in a cloud phone system was the inability to capture data. Important pieces of information are shared multiple times a day through voice conversations and have been previously captured only through note taking and memory. This is obviously flawed and an issue that Dialpad and other companies are helping to solve with AI and NLP, with major advancements seen in the last year or two.
I’m also seeing a bigger reliance on, and trust around, VoIP technologies as companies have moved more and more into the cloud.
Moving forward, I anticipate faster speeds, less latency and more consistency across the board. With higher internet speeds, we will be able to have the same experience on every device we use and in every country. We will also have faster and more frequent updates, as opposed to the gradual or individualized rollouts currently taking place. IT departments and business leaders will take control of their entire communications systems, from anywhere, and with connections and integrations to keep everything trackable, reportable, and in one place. This is all starting to happen now, but will expand at a rapid pace in the coming years, enabling more remote work capabilities for companies. As one example, we have customers who have an entire call center workforce working from home, which saves money and increases employee satisfaction and loyalty, among other positives.
How do you see the role of the data and voice engineers evolve as cloud telephony takes center stage? Which are the top 3 skills they need to be equipped with in 2020 and beyond?
Cloud telephony will become just like other modern cloud tech companies. You will have to have some AI/Machine Learning expertise inhouse and mostly modern generalist engineers instead of traditional telephony engineers.
We don’t recruit people who know telephony necessarily, we recruit great software engineers, regardless of programming language. If you’ve learned one language you can learn another. The most important thing is modern web/cloud development experience.
How will 5G technology influence Dialpad’s solutions and services? Can you walk us through how Dialpad is upgrading its offerings to accommodate high internet speed and low latency in 5G?
Upgrading to 5G means that things will become faster and at a higher quality, with lower latency. People will be able to have the same experience on all devices and from anywhere, allowing for a truly mobile, work from anywhere, modern workforce. With 5G, there won't be anything you can’t do with technology. We are already seeing the upside with our Dialpad products. With faster, more reliable connections, our users will also have our real-time assist capabilities on the mobile app. They’ll be able to use a cell phone for all the things previously requiring a laptop or home office.
We’ve already seen this among entertainment content, and because of Netflix, people have come to expect these speeds and quality, which will spill over into workplace tools. Gone are the days where workers HAD to go to the office to have access to faster internet speeds.
With 5G, a remote force can be as productive, or even more so. 5G raises everyone, also allowing us as engineers to do more robust work for mobile because all limitations will be lifted.
Dialpad acquired TalkIQ to deliver AI-driven voice analytics to businesses. How has voice analytics fared so far and how are you leveraging AI to refine the tech stack?
Acquiring TalkIQ gave Dialpad a competitive advantage. We can bake in our in-house-built ASR and NLP offerings across all of our products. We are also able to do this faster, more accurately, and at a much lower cost to consumers — other companies that use a third-party service cost 10x as much. Our models are also more accurate because they are able to be customized particularly for sales and customer service reps.
Services like Google or Amazon were built for consumer use, so there are often mistakes or a lack of understanding around industry terms. They also are built off of different audio frequency ranges, which affects the quality of the transcription. Our ASR is built specifically for telephony audio bands, making it more accurate for real-life phone calls.
Our products are built specifically to solve the problems our users face on a daily basis, thereby allowing us to offer more reliable and consistent results.
How do you ensure that communications via Dialpad’s products are kept secure from interceptions, overloading attacks, and impersonation attempts by hackers? What cyber risks are on the top of your mind when designing new solutions for customers?
One of the advantages of using all modern cloud technology is that it is constantly being updated for a wide variety of security threats. Traditional telephony on virtual machines can be hard to update, and in return, harder to automatically patch holes. Being on the cloud means a lot of security holes get automatically patched for us. We are constantly updating our software and are also able to run constant pen tests to avoid threats. Additionally, all of our data is encrypted and GDPR compliant. We take security very seriously and constantly seek to maintain the highest standards.
In a nutshell, how are Dialpad’s telephony solutions different from those offered by established players such as Genesys, Avaya, and Vonage? What is Dialpad’s USP for enterprise customers?
We have numerous differentiators over legacy players that give us a real edge both today and into the future. Dialpad offers central control through the website over the entire phone system across the globe (as opposed to individ configuring), instant provisioning of phone numbers and accounts, real-time AI, and complete device synchronization. We also have a modern mobile app that goes beyond just a telephony product. As one of the only products in our field built after and for the smartphone era, we have always leveraged the best-in-class technology for a more seamless and reliable experience.
We are also able to innovate very quickly, because we are cloud-first and can roll out features within a matter of days as opposed to other players’ months or year. Our real-time AI allows for instantaneous sync and access to information, whether a user is on a deskphone, computer, web, or mobile. Dialpad is the only product to offer this flexibility and technology. We are moving faster and smarter than other players in the field, and we have built a better phone call.
What, in your opinion, will be the top three exciting trends in cloud telephony between now and 2025?
In five years, no one will want custom, legacy hardware, and will instead prefer flexible, mobile options. Mobile will be more important than ever, especially among call and sales centers. Secondly, everyone will start moving to a microservice approach, even the traditional players.
Thirdly, people will continue to use the right tool for every job, as opposed to a single platform for all. We are already seeing that movement towards an “a-la-carte” selection process and are lucky to live in a time where disparate pieces all integrate together. It used to be that everything needed to be one system/platform for it to work together or work well. Now, and in the future, integration is key. For example, we don't need to build a Slack competitor. And Slack doesn't need to or probably doesn’t want to do telephony. That doesn't mean the two can't work well together (and we do!).
About Brian Peterson:
Brian Peterson is Co-Founder and Senior Vice President of Engineering for Dialpad. Previously, he was a Senior Software Engineer at Google, where he helped to build Google Voice. After eight years at Google, with fellow Google Voice creators Craig Walker and John Rector, Brian founded video conferencing tool UberConference as part of Firespotter Labs. In 2011, the company rebranded as Dialpad, where he and his team continue to transform the way businesses communicate.
About Dialpad:
Dialpad is a business phone system built on the Google Cloud Platform for unmatched security, reliability, and scale. Dialpad’s product suite covers the full range of modern business communications needs with DialpadTalk, DialpadSell, DialpadSupport, and UberConference, all powered by Voice Intelligence (ViTM). Today more than 62,000 of the world’s most innovative businesses use Dialpad and its seamless integrations with Google G Suite and Microsoft Office 365 to be more productive. Customers include WeWork, Uber, Motorola Solutions, Domo and Xero. Investors include Amasia, Andreessen Horowitz, Felicis Ventures, GV, ICONIQ Capital, Salesforce Ventures, Scale Ventures, Section 32, Softbank, and Work-Bench.