New challenges require new solutions. With waves of regulations hitting the housing sector in recent years, there’s unprecedented demand for innovative solutions to keep things running smoothly.
In previous editions of Housing Technology, we’ve written about environmental sensors, contact centre solutions and how they work together to identify maintenance problems and improve first-time fix rates. For this edition, we’re looking at how AI and machine learning augment these tools, enabling powerful new solutions and allowing housing providers to leverage the same resources to their fullest potential.
Me, myself & AI – Zoom’s free AI companion
Zoom is bundling its AI Companion features into all subscriptions for the housing sector at no extra cost, giving every user a free digital assistant out-of-the-box.
AI Companion supports agents across a range of everyday processes, providing valuable insights and reducing workloads. For example, AI Companion features for Contact Centre include auto-generated chat summaries for agents before they accept engagements, showing real-time speech metrics, visualising customer sentiment, generating lists of follow-up tasks based on customer conversations and allowing agents to auto-generate messages based on conversational context.
This is just one of Zoom’s services bolstered by AI. Other services include Meetings, Team Chat, Mail, Whiteboard, Events, Phone, Clips, Docs and Tasks, all enhanced by Zoom AI Companion. Additionally, the AI Companion Panel allows users to send prompts and receive tailored responses.
Some organisations may question whether AI is right for them or if they have enough use cases to justify the spend. However, with Zoom’s move into contact centre solutions, housing providers have the perfect opportunity to find out. By giving agents with an existing Zoom Workplace license access to an abundance of AI applications, contact centre teams can discover the features that work best for their needs.
Carebuilder & the Social Care Crisis
Many housing providers offer adult social care services, itself another sector experiencing exceptional pressure. A 2024 Skills for Care paper reported that staff turnover for social care was around 25 per cent, with roughly 350,000 people changing roles last year. Additionally, an eight per cent vacancy rate suggest that a further 130,000 positions are unfilled.
This demonstrates the strain on care staff, and when these staff leave, they take experience and knowledge of care recipients with them, impacting the care provider’s standard of service.
The social care sector faces numerous challenges, from residents needing around-the-clock care to finding bespoke solutions to support users’ specific needs, all alongside an aging population with increasing needs.
At Social Telecoms, our Backbone to the Future initiative encourages housing providers to think differently about wi-fi and its applications, beyond just providing internet access to residents. Carebuilder has become a perfect example of this philosophy, with services to uplift and improve the social care system as we know it.
Carebuilder’s focus on ‘technology-assisted care’ has two major benefits: allowing care recipients to remain independent for longer; and reducing cases where carers must frequently monitor residents. The resulting system benefits staff and service users alike, and offers a genuine solution to the difficulties that care providers face.
Audio monitoring and resident support
Carebuilder’s AI Sound works proactively, providing crucial care and support for a broad range of vulnerable groups. This solution boasts minimal reliance on sensors and integrates seamlessly with existing systems.
By identifying specific sounds, their frequency and timing, AI Sound builds an understanding of how residents live their lives. Not only is it ideal for non-verbal care recipients, such as detecting the nuance and meaning behind utterances, but also in emergency situations, such as detecting falls or cries for help.
Using AI and machine learning, AI Sound continually improves its service, better-identifying sounds to monitor care recipients via an on-site tablet. By monitoring daily routines, it provides valuable insights into the habits of residents and works to identify potential short- and long-term health risks.
Lifestyle monitoring
This proactive approach to care doesn’t end with AI Sound. With the recipient’s consent, Carebuilder’s full range of lifestyle monitoring services provides a comprehensive overview of how residents live, analysing lifestyle patterns via smart sensors to offer bespoke support.
This array of sensors can include detection for motion or water, or monitor usage of doors, cookers, fridges, beds and more. These sensors connect over wi-fi, making installation and integration incredibly simple.
Once protocols and preferences are set, Carebuilder will track day-to-day activities and raise a ‘passive alarm’ should the sensors detect a concerning situation. This could include scenarios where a patient hasn’t got out of bed or moved from a single room for a long period of time, hasn’t used the fridge or left home. Unintrusive heart-rate monitors are also available, sending an alert if any abrupt changes occur.
Intelligent matching
Carebuilder’s services don’t just monitor and raise alerts; with triage and escalation protocols, service providers can optimise their responses as well. Carebuilder’s Intelligent Matching functionality determines the best person to respond to an alarm, request or trigger, based on a number of criteria.
These criteria could include urgency, distance, role, qualification, gender or other factors. Whether there’s a fall in the home or a resident’s simple request, Carebuilder ensures service providers can respond appropriately.
Colin Foskett, UK director, Carebuilder, said, “The smart triage is a lifesaver, sending alerts to people who are close by or have specific qualifications or skills; you always know the right support is at hand.”
The extent of Carebuilder’s services offers a strong contrast to existing solutions such as warden call systems. These alarms rely on residents being able to access a pull cord should anything go wrong, and in many cases raise an alarm without giving the proper information to coordinate a response.
The future, supported over wi-fi
With the introduction of AI features and machine learning, companies such as Zoom and Carebuilder are finding new and innovative solutions to benefit housing providers.
The strength of these solutions isn’t just their impact on care or contact centre services, but also their accessibility. Carebuilder’s proactive approach to care uses sensors and tablets, integrating easily over wi-fi. Equally, by including AI Companion with its standard Workplace license, Zoom allows everybody to engage with AI features for a smarter contact centre.
Easy to implement and easy to use, these solutions give care and housing providers the tools they need to meet and exceed today’s requirements. With increasingly sophisticated solutions available, AI and machine learning give organisations the edge they need to keep up with ever-increasing demands.
Pippa Saunders is the business development director for Social Telecoms.
