Enterprise tech providers are taking steps to block their customers from giving third-party AI providers access to the data on their platforms.
An analysis from The Information brings this emerging issue to the fore, less than a month after Salesforce faced fiery criticism for making such a move.
Indeed, Salesforce implemented new "safeguards" in Slack that prevented integrated third-party solutions from pulling unlimited amounts of data from the collaborations platform via APIs.
Essentially, Salesforce obstructed its customers from using their own data as they please.
Still, the tech giant maintains that it made the move to protect customer data. Yet, it has inadvertently thrust into the limelight the ongoing battle between AI startups and the enterprise platforms from which they source data.
That battle is now spilling into the contact center space, with The Information isolating how NiCE and Genesys charge customers extra for analyzing customer calls with third-party AI solutions.
These AI solutions may monitor customer contact reasons, track sentiment levels, and auto-fill quality assurance (QA) scorecards.
After calling out the contact center providers, the authors namedropped Cresta as an example of an AI startup that bears the brunt of this trend.
Talking to CX Today, Russell Banzon, Chief Marketing Officer at Cresta, refrained from blasting the NiCE and Genesys specifically, noting that these AI markups are an industry-wide problem.
"Enterprise organizations need to be wary of CCaaS and telephony providers holding their data hostage," he said.
"Today, many large vendors are taking steps to keep customer data locked within their platforms with the hopes of deepening the stickiness of their relationship. However, vendor-lock is becoming a top concern for many enterprise organizations as they view AI as critical to their long-term success.
Customers should be clear in their RFPs (Request for Proposals) for these types of platforms that they need an open data approach to future-proof their AI strategy.
Banzon did note how some CCaaS vendors are embracing this open data approach while partnering with Cresta and similar AI startups to "provide their customers with the best possible experience."
In the CRM market, HubSpot even recently announced a first-of-its-kind integration to share data with ChatGPT.
However, vendors blocking the competition is nothing new in the contact center space, which has a history of providers making similar moves to lock in customers.