Barak Eilam: Sure, so I’ll start on the first question. I’ve been in the industry for now 25 years, the industry of the CX market, and I’ve seen our market way before the AI days trying to drive automation because at the end of the day, it is a very labor-intensive market. Ninety-some percent of the cost is still with labor, with agents, and there is obviously a desire to go for automation. But [indiscernible] most vendors and companies talk about automation, it’s either/or. It’s either you have something with an agent that is fully manual, done by the agent with some technology, or fully automated tasks. The approach we have been taking with AI, and that’s the reason that we have launched Copilot and Autopilot together, the Enlighten Copilot and Autopilot, is the ability to move in this continuum and deliver a continuous experience for customers.
That makes sense, and that makes automation much more valuable, so this is why the concept that I talked about first–not first, but to start with augmented intelligence to the agent, make them much more powerful, but at the same time take those parts of the interaction that can be fully automated, move them to full automation, but also the ability to toggle between them. We’ve all been probably as consumers through the experience that you start with an agent or you start with a bot, and as soon as there is certain ambiguity about the intent, you are stuck at that point and your experience is deteriorating. The ability with CXone, that is a unified platform that has all the convergence assets and provides AI for both agents and for full automation, that’s what allows you to break this 20-some years of failures in automation and bring it to life.
That’s with respect to that. Your question about LiveVox, I’ll hand it over to Beth.
Beth Gaspich: Yes, so with respect to the impact, we expect LiveVox to have a considerable amount of synergies and be highly synergistic to really drive an accretive nature to both our profitability and our cash flows. We have that confidence as there is quite a few overlaps as you think about another public company as it pertains to G&A related costs, and of course we still operate in the same space as well, so we also have synergies when it comes to go-to-market and the product as well. If you look back on our track record of making acquisitions over the past several years, you can see we really have a great track record and a strong showing and delivering on the ability to drive healthy synergies into our operating model, and that’s what we expect with LiveVox as well.
Meta Marshall: Great, thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from Pat Walravens from JMP Securities. Please proceed.
Pat Walravens: Great, thank you. Barak, we’re praying for you, your families, and especially for the safe return of the hostages. If you look at the Gartner magic quadrant, you and Genesis are the two clear leaders in the space. Can you walk us through what the competitive dynamics are like with them? When do you usually win and when you do usually not win? How does it work?
Barak Eilam: Thank you, Pat. The competitive landscape is more than just us and Genesis, but needless to say Genesis is one of our competitors. We believe we are winning. We have a superior winning rate over Genesis. In many cases Genesis and others are the incumbents, and they are, because of their financial considerations, trying to hold onto their customer base and maintenance base. That’s number one. Second, I think given once again the financial considerations, like very high debt and the way that the company is being held in terms of ownership, I think they are very short term oriented in terms of their investment in the long term viability of the company for customers. I think that gives us superiority. Our investments specifically in expanding into digital engagement and AI is something that we haven’t seen there, and it gives us these days a significant advantage.
When it comes to just simple price war, we will do what it takes to win the customer, but we in not just on price, we win on the value proposition, and customers understand that NICE is here for the long run. We don’t have an exit plan, we don’t need to transact the company, we don’t try to five times a year go around and sell the company like others do, so our management attention is 100%, seven days a week, 24 hours a day, just focusing on our customers and our business.
Pat Walravens: Thank you.
Operator: Our next question comes from Michael Funk from Bank of America. Please proceed.
Michael Funk: Hi, good morning. Thank you for the questions. One for Beth to begin. Beth, I think in response to an earlier question about a prior comment about weaker SMB consumption, I think you said that you felt the tightening is temporary, and I believe I heard you say that you’re expecting some positive shift or seeing some positive shift entering next year, so hope maybe you could clarify a bit on that comment, and then I have one follow-up, if I could.
