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Cisco and noHold Collaborate on Project "SARA"

CSCO | January 27, 2015

noHold and Cisco collaborate on Virtual Assistant, SARA, Services Automated Resolution Agent. As traditional Virtual Assistants (VAs) and Virtual Customer Assistants (VCAs) aim to answer basic questions and perform simple tasks, SARA will revolutionize the interaction by integrating with sophisticated back office systems and deeper understanding of complex problem resolution.

Cisco has a vision, which is a significant shift from the traditional support and services paradigm: Use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to make use of the data stored in networking devices such as routers, increase speed to resolution, make real time updates, and perform tasks for network administrators. In a simplified explanation, a scenario might include a user with a problem in the datacenter. The Virtual Assistant can, for example, capture data from a sophisticated router, and after troubleshooting, pass that information to an administrator for faster case resolution. In addition, this scenario can be expanded to make use of other Cisco APIs to streamline processes while making support less cumbersome.

noHold began working with Cisco and its powerful onePK Application Programming Interface (API) earlier in 2014, to demonstrate that this vision will be reality in the near future. The brands have successfully proven that this type of Virtual Assistant can troubleshoot and diagnose complex issues, ‘talk’ to the device, make updates, and more. onePK is an element within Cisco's Open Network Environment software-defined networking (SDN) strategy. onePK is an easy-to-use toolkit for development, automation, rapid service creation, and more. With its rich set of APIs, you can easily access the valuable data inside your network.

According to Diego Ventura, noHold’s CEO and Founder, the end goal was to demonstrate the technical feasibility of connecting a Virtual Assistant with Cisco’s back end systems. “Overall, we wanted to create an experience that mirrors Cisco’s vision and create a Virtual support partner that can help. In the technology space, the level of complexity is increasing; in the datacenter, it’s even more complex. We wanted to prove to ourselves that we can use machines to fight the very complexity that they [machines and technology] have created. Cisco has a very sophisticated set of APIs that can be leveraged by third party vendors and partners. On our side, we were excited to see that the Virtual Assistant can not only query, but can control information in the database, the devices themselves, while being able to leverage the context of the situation.”

Glenn Schleicher, Sr. Director/GM of Cisco’s Smart Web Technology Group explains that “as our partners and customers seek low touch, low effort ways to operate and manage increasingly complex networks, traditional technologies such as knowledge base search fail to deliver. Virtual agent technologies have come a long way, and we were pleased to partner with noHold to explore what is possible today. The potential to streamline and automate complex customer service interactions is huge.”

For a video clip of the integration, visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L9L0MSi5318&feature=youtu.be

About Cisco

Cisco (NASDAQ: CSCO) is the worldwide leader in IT that helps companies seize the opportunities of tomorrow by proving that amazing things can happen when you connect the previously unconnected. For ongoing news, please go to http://thenetwork.cisco.com.

About noHold, Inc.

noHold is a privately held company established in 1999 and is headquartered in Milpitas, CA, USA (Silicon Valley). noHold is the acknowledged leader in Web based self-service solutions with a mission to deliver real answer to real questions – real fast. Simple to use, easy to implement and as close to human as you can get, noHold turns automated customer support into cognitive customer interaction. noHold customers include Toshiba, Lenovo, Cisco and a host of industry leaders. Most information can be found at www.nohold.com.