Avaya has made a strategic investment in Journey.ai, Inc., developer of a digital trusted identity platform to improve the security and privacy of enterprise interactions with customers via contact centers, according to a statement released by the company. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed. The transaction closed in August 2021 and is not expected to have a material financial impact for the current quarter, according to the statement.
This is Avaya's second contact center-related move this month; earlier in August, Avaya acquired contact center developer CTIntegrations.
Avaya Invests in Digital Identity Platform Journey.ai
Journey is part of the Avaya DevConnect partner ecosystem, and is based in Denver, Colorado. The Journey digital trusted identity platform integrates with the Avaya OneCloud contact center-as-a-service (CCaaS) offering to help enable a more private, secure and enhanced customer experience, according to the statement.
Journey's solution enables contact center agents, bots and other self-service applications to request, collect, verify and route customer data from a variety of biometrics, including facial and voice authentication, to eSignatures, payments and other sensitive information without exposing customer data, according to the statement. Using these multi-modal biometric technologies, Journey can confirm customer identity with 99.9999% accuracy in less than two seconds, according to the company.
Journey’s Zero Knowledge Network gives Avaya OneCloud CCaaS customers the unique ability to digitally request information from their own customers, from personal identifiable information (PII) to payments to electronic signatures. This information is then routed to back-office systems to be verified and acted on before returning the results back to the contact center agents or specific applications. Only need-to-know information is revealed to the agents, according to the statement.
Avaya's Digital Identity Journey: Executive Commentary
David Austin, Avaya GVP of corporate development, commented on the news:
“Journey’s innovation in Zero Knowledge, coupled with core Avaya Contact Center offerings address critical components of the customer experience along with the privacy and security requirements faced by contact centers. This strategic investment in an ecosystem partner enhances key security capabilities for our global customers, and is bringing additional industry-leading innovation into the Avaya OneCloud platform.”
Brett Shockley, co-founder and CEO of Journey, added:
“To combat the increase in data breaches and identity theft, the Avaya OneCloud Platform provides an ideal solution to leverage and orchestrate trusted identity throughout the customer journey across blended channels and devices to improve the customer experience. By verifying a customer through flexible biometrics, rather than relying on passwords like their favorite pizza topping or high school mascot, we have an opportunity to simultaneously fight fraud and customer friction in the contact center.”
