Purple CTO Shares His Azure Communication Services Experience for a Secure Contact Center
In 2022, we knew legacy on-premise systems were not going to sustain us as a fully independent contact center solution for the dozens of customers we serve. At Purple, we needed a cloud-based solution that enabled us to deliver better customer support and engagement—and allowed us to stay competitive in the market. We looked at four options, but it was an easy decision for us: Azure Communication Services bridges the gap between outdated infrastructure and a secure, scalable platform, enabling our entire business to expand its services while ensuring data is securely managed and compliant with regulatory standards. How we transformed Purple’s technological base with Azure Communication Services Our previous investments in Microsoft Teams and Teams Direct Routing for PSTN connectivity aligned seamlessly with Azure Communication Service’s interoperable framework. By adopting ACS, we modernized our technological stack and expanded our service capabilities to include reception and delegation services. Azure Communication Service’s efficiency has allowed us to develop a cost-effective, reliable solution with minimal development effort while also addressing data storage and compliance requirements. Sensitive customer data is now stored securely within customers’ Azure tenants, enhancing security and regulatory compliance. Integrating AI for enhanced contact center capabilities The migration and integration processes presented logistical and technical challenges, particularly in transferring large volumes of PSTN minutes and seamlessly transitioning services for existing customers without disrupting their operations. But our team at Purple did a great job integrating ACS into client operations, which has bolstered our position in the contact center market. Leveraging ACS features—such as call automation, direct routing, job router, call recording, transcription, and media functionalities—we enhanced our communication capabilities to support chat, email, and SMS services. We also tap into several Microsoft AI technologies to improve our contact center capabilities. Services like speech-to-text (STT), text-to-speech (TTS), transcription, summarization, and sentiment analysis provide actionable insights for businesses and agents. For optimized performance, planned integrations with Copilot studio let managers and customers query specific contact center metrics, such as agent availability and peak interaction times. Flexibility and scalability translate to cost-effectiveness for customers With ACS’s flexibility and scalability, we've developed a business model centered around cost-effectiveness and reliability. Its pay-as-you-go structure supports unlimited agents and queues, charging customers based on usage, which has reduced our costs by up to 50% and improved stability by 83% compared to older solutions. At Purple, we offer granular billing that differentiates costs for VoIP minutes, call recordings, and transcriptions. Integration with platforms like Salesforce, Jira, and Dynamics365 further streamlines operations, and helps us deliver a seamless, high-quality, cost-effective experience for all of our clients. We are excited about the AI-driven collaboration with Microsoft, which enhances our voice, chat, and CRM integration services, delivering significant value to our customers. This partnership will optimize the end-user experience, seamlessly integrate existing customer data, and provide a more cost-effective solution for businesses to scale and elevate their customer interactions. - Purple Chief Technology Officer Tjeerd VerhoeffMessaging Connect: Global SMS Coverage Now Available in Azure Communication Services
Messaging Connect is now in public preview—Messaging Connect is a new partner-based model for Azure Communication Services that enables global SMS coverage in over 190 countries—starting with Infobip. It simplifies compliant delivery, removes provisioning complexity, and helps developers reach users or Agents reach humans, worldwide using the Azure Communication Service SMS API they already know.Teams Phone extensibility powered by Azure Communication Services
Today, CCaaS providers are using Gen AI to improve customer experience by advising human agents and automating workflows. However, interactions are split between UCaaS like Teams and CCaaS systems, limiting Gen AI's potential. Brands want integrated solutions that unify telephony infrastructure for a complete view of customer interactions and robust data handling. Customizability is crucial for integration. On March 17th, 2025, we proudly announce the launch of Teams Phone extensibility powered by Azure Communication Services at Enterprise Connect, allowing CCaaS vendors to seamlessly integrate with Teams Phone to meet brand needs. Teams Phone with Azure Communication Services Azure Communication Services Call Automation and Calling SDK now enable CCaaS developers to extend Teams Phone capabilities into their application. Key benefits of Teams Phone extensibility include: Consolidate Telephony for UCaaS and CCaaS: Simplified setup with no need to configure and administer separate phone systems. Customers can leverage their Teams phone telephony investment for contact center deployments. Gen AI Integration:Utilize AI to streamline processes and empower customer service agents with automation capabilities, with direct access to Azure AI technology. Extend UCaaS Capabilities to CCaaS: Take advantage of Teams Phone enterprise features, including emergency calling, dial plan policies, wide geographic availability of Public Switched Telephone Network (PSTN) connectivity options and much more. Agent Notification handling: Allow data segregation between CCaaS persona and UCaaS persona with the choice of ringing either the Teams standard client or a CCaaS application. Cost Efficiency: Enable ISVs to build cost-effective solutions using existing Teams Phone plans, without adding Azure Communication Services numbers or Direct Routing. Key Features Provisioning for Seamless Integration:Our provisioning capabilities empower CCaaS providers to connect their ACS deployments with customers' Teams tenants, enabling the use of Teams telephony features for a cohesive and efficient communication experience. Emergency Calling: With Azure Communication Services Calling SDK, we bring enhanced emergency calling support for agents who can dial emergency services, provide their location, and receive callbacks from public safety answering points. Leverage Call Automation: Azure Communication Services Call Automation APIs enable CCaaS providers to build server-based and intelligent call flows. Call Routing and Mid-Call Controls: The solution includes advanced call routing capabilities, which enable more efficient call management and escalation to agents. Mid-call controls enable adding participants, redirecting calls, and transferring calls seamlessly. Convenience Recording: Azure Communication Services enables developers to integrate call recording capabilities into Microsoft Teams for CCaaS scenarios, allowing for customized recording processes controlled by CCaaS admins. Get to know more about Azure Communication Services Call Recording here. Conversational AI Integration: Developers can use Call Automation APIs to leverage AI-powered tools, play personalized greeting messages, recognize conversational voice inputs, and use sentiment analysis to improve customer service. Get started today with this QuickStart. ISV Ecosystem At launch, Teams Phone extensibility will be supported by a diverse range of ISV solutions, including Anywhere365, AudioCodes, ComputerTalk, Enghouse, IP Dynamics, Landis, and Luware. These partners expand the reach and functionality of Teams Phone, allowing you to select the best solution for your unique requirements. This flexibility means businesses can improve their telephony setup while experiencing the full power of Teams Phone and Azure Communication Services. Learn more Teams Phone extensibility will be in public preview and available for customers to try soon. To learn more about Teams Phone extensibility and how to develop your own solutions using Azure Communication Services, stay tuned for more resources and announcements at Build 2025 in May. Developers may join the Azure Communication Services TAP program with the following form: Azure Communication Services Technology Adoption Program Registration. We look forward to seeing how our partners and customers leverage these new capabilities to improve their contact center operations. Follow Sean Keegan on LinkedIn for more news about Azure Communication Services!Reliable, scalable, future-ready: AudioCodes extends the value of Teams for customer experiences with Azure Communication Services and Voca CIC
To improve customer experiences with cost-effective AI technology, AudioCodes fully onboarded their contact center from Microsoft Teams to Azure Communication Services.
Ignite 2024: Bidirectional real-time audio streaming with Azure Communication Services
Today at Microsoft Ignite, we are excited to announce the upcoming preview of bidirectional audio streaming for Azure Communication Services Call Automation SDK, which unlocks new possibilities for developers and businesses. This capability results in seamless, low-latency, real-time communication when integrated with services like Azure Open AI and the real-time voice APIs, significantly enhancing how businesses can build and deploy conversational AI solutions. With the advent of new AI technologies, companies are developing solutions to reduce customer wait times and improve the overall customer experience. To achieve this, many businesses are turning to AI-powered agents. These AI-based agents must be capable of having conversations with customers in a human-like manner while maintaining very low latencies to ensure smooth interactions. This is especially critical in the voice channel, where any delay can significantly impact the fluidity and natural feel of the conversation. With bidirectional streaming, businesses can now elevate their voice solutions to low-latency, human-like, interactive conversational AI agents. Our bidirectional streaming APIs enable developers to stream audio from an ongoing call on Azure Communication Services to their web server in real-time. On the server, powerful language models interpret the caller's query and stream the responses back to the caller. All this is accomplished while maintaining low latency, ensuring the caller feels like they are speaking to a human. One such example of this would be to take the audio streams and processing them through Azure Open AI’s real-time voice API and then streaming the responses back into the call. With the integration of bidirectional streaming into Azure Communication Services Call Automation SDK, developers have new tools to innovate: Leverage conversational AI Solutions: Develop sophisticated customer support virtual agents that can interact with customers in real-time, providing immediate responses and solutions. Personalized customer experiences: By harnessing real-time data, businesses can offer more personalized and dynamic customer interactions in real-time, leading to increased satisfaction and loyalty. Reduce wait times for customers: By using bidirectional audio streams in combination with Large Language Models (LLMs) you can build virtual agents that can be the first point of contact for customers reducing the need for customers waiting for a human agent being available. Integrating with real-time voice-based Large Language Models (LLMs) With the advancements in voice based LLMs, developers want to take advantage of services like bidirectional streaming and send audio directly between the caller and the LLM. Today we’ll show you how you can start audio streaming through Azure Communication Services. Developers can start bidirectional streaming at the time of answering the call by providing the WebSocket URL. //Answer call with bidirectional streaming websocketUri = appBaseUrl.Replace("https", "wss") + "/ws"; var options = new AnswerCallOptions(incomingCallContext, callbackUri) { MediaStreamingOptions = new MediaStreamingOptions( transportUri: new Uri(websocketUri), contentType: MediaStreamingContent.Audio, audioChannelType: MediaStreamingAudioChannel.Mixed, startMediaStreaming: true) { EnableBidirectional = true, AudioFormat = AudioFormat.Pcm24KMono } }; At the same time, you should open your connection with Azure Open AI real-time voice API. Once the WebSocket connection is setup, Azure Communication Services starts streaming audio to your webserver. From there you can relay the audio to Azure Open AI voice and vice versa. Once the LLM reasons over the content provided in the audio it streams audio to your service which you can stream back into the Azure Communication Services call. (More information about how to set this up will be made available after Ignite) //Receiving streaming data from Azure Communication Services over websocket private async Task StartReceivingFromAcsMediaWebSocket() { if (m_webSocket == null) return; try { while (m_webSocket.State == WebSocketState.Open || m_webSocket.State == WebSocketState.Closed) { byte[] receiveBuffer = new byte[2048]; WebSocketReceiveResult receiveResult = await m_webSocket.ReceiveAsync(new ArraySegment<byte>(receiveBuffer), m_cts.Token); if (receiveResult.MessageType == WebSocketMessageType.Close) continue; var data = Encoding.UTF8.GetString(receiveBuffer).TrimEnd('\0'); if(StreamingData.Parse(data) is AudioData audioData) { using var ms = new MemoryStream(audioData.Data); await m_aiServiceHandler.SendAudioToExternalAI(ms); } } } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine($"Exception -> {ex}"); } } Streaming audio data back into Azure Communication Services //create and serialize streaming data private void ConvertToAcsAudioPacketAndForward( byte[] audioData ) { var audio = new OutStreamingData(MediaKind.AudioData) { AudioData = new AudioData(audioData) }; // Serialize the JSON object to a string string jsonString = System.Text.Json.JsonSerializer.Serialize<OutStreamingData>(audio); // Queue the async operation for later execution try { m_channel.Writer.TryWrite(async () => await m_mediaStreaming.SendMessageAsync(data)); } catch (Exception ex) { Console.WriteLine($"\"Exception received on ReceiveAudioForOutBound {ex}"); } } //Send encoded data over the websocket to Azure Communication Services public async Task SendMessageAsync(string message) { if (m_webSocket?.State == WebSocketState.Open) { byte[] jsonBytes = Encoding.UTF8.GetBytes(message); // Send the PCM audio chunk over WebSocket await m_webSocket.SendAsync(new ArraySegment<byte>(jsonBytes), WebSocketMessageType.Text, endOfMessage: true, CancellationToken.None); } } To reduce developer overhead when integrating with voice-based LLMs, Azure Communication Services supports a new sample rate of 24Khz, eliminating the need for developers to resample audio data and helping preserve audio quality in the process Next steps The SDK and documentation will be available in the next few weeks after this announcement, offering tools and information to integrate bidirectional streaming and utilize voice-based LLMs in your applications. Stay tuned and check our blog for updates!Building a WhatsApp AI bot for customer support
In this blog post, we’ll explore how to build a customer support application that integrates with WhatsApp using Azure Communication Services and Azure OpenAI. This app enables users to interact with a self-service bot to resolve common customer queries, such as troubleshooting errors or checking order status.Anywhere365 integrates Azure Communication Services into their Dialogue Cloud Platform
Anywhere365 incorporates Azure Communication Services into its cloud contact center offering alongside integration with Microsoft Teams. The outcome of this helps businesses achieve more with AI-powered intelligent B2C communication solutions.
