Genesys Introduces Automated Forecasting and Scheduling

Genesys today introduced Automated Forecasting and Scheduling, an AI-powered forecasting and scheduling service for workforce management. The capabilities aim to enable businesses to harness artificial intelligence to quickly and accurately predict the best possible staffing schedules, with an eye on saving time and money.

“The main operational challenge is the time and cost involved with generating these required elements of workforce planning. Messy spreadsheets with set formulas are typically the approach, but they limit the workforce planner’s capability to test their data set against all known possibilities,” says Cameron Smith, senior director of product management at Genesys, of the forecasting element. “This can mean that traditional forecasting is a lot narrower in its scope compared to what can be achieved with AI. Simulating hundreds of thousands of different configurations at the click of the button simplifies the end-user experience, but dramatically improves the sophistication of the process.”

With a single click, automated forecasting compares parameters from more than 25 methodologies, evaluates hundreds of thousands of potential forecasts, and predicts the right one in less than 30 seconds. “Historical data is compared and validated against 25-plus methodologies and tens of thousands of configurations to find the most accurate and optimal outcome for the user. We then return the forecast to the user and explain how we achieved the outcome,” Smith explains.

“For scheduling, the problem was a little different. Depending on your configuration and size, some schedules could take hours to return with a result. We now have the ability to turn this around in minutes with a 60-times improvement in speed, allowing schedulers the ability to run more scenarios with the precious time they have,” Smith says of the scheduling piece.

Automated scheduling allows businesses to create optimized schedules in minutes. Users can also compare multiple schedules and quickly make updates in response to staff changes. “Through dramatically speeding up the process of producing schedules, planners can now run multiple configuration scenarios in much quicker time frames. This gives workforce planning the ability to try new configurations and see results in minutes, as well as allow planners the flexibility needed to proactively improve both CX [customer experience] and EX [employee experience],” Smith adds.

Automated Forecasting and Scheduling relies on Geneys’s Kate AI platform. According to Smith, the platform’s data collection capabilities are “a cornerstone” of the new service. “By collecting data across a variety of channels and leveraging the machine learning capabilities of the platform, we are able to provide rich and immediate data analysis,” he says.