ACP: The Amazon Connect Podcast

Send us Fan Mail
This episode of ACP recaps a busy July of Amazon Connect Customer updates.
The headline is a major quality upgrade to Amazon Connect’s AI voices (announced July 20), adding 100 new voice options across 50+ languages, improved turn-taking and interruption handling, fewer gaps, and more control over speed, volume, emotion, and SSML-like markup (including optional laughter 😂). 
We play before/after demos in US English plus Australian and UK variants, noting increased naturalness but limited regional UK accents. 
Additional releases include new supervisor dashboard metrics for agent queues, automatic example evaluations to support agent coaching, workforce planning/forecasting expanded to emails and tasks, a new “interrupt agent” flow block to force routing to specific agents even when unavailable, and rule-based redaction that blurs specified apps or web pages in agent screen recordings to reduce PII exposure.
The episode also reiterates AWS’s April rebrand splitting Amazon Connect into four products under an agentic AI banner.
Find out more about CloudInteract at cloudinteract.io.

Send us Fan Mail
On this episode we welcome Hannah Bloking, Senior Manager for Applied AI Acceleration Solutions Architecture at AWS, to discuss her career path from fine arts into tech, her work across the Executive Briefing Center, Amazon Connect (now Amazon Connect Customer), and leading Amazon’s internal rollout of what evolved from Amazon Q into QuickSuite.
Hannah shares how AWS and partners are adapting to rapidly evolving agentic AI, why the biggest challenge is choosing and understanding the right use cases rather than the technology itself, and how Amazon Connect’s expanded portfolio (including examples like Connect Talent) is being received by customers.
We also cover the intersection of contact center data and BI/analytics with Quick, the importance of focusing on end-customer experience over cost optimization initially, and advice to upskill, embrace change, and not fear making mistakes.
Find out more about CloudInteract at cloudinteract.io.

Send us Fan Mail
This week we deep dive into call recording in Amazon Connect, covering how recording evolved from expensive, tape-based systems into ubiquitous digital recordings driven by compliance needs like PCI, HIPAA, GDPR, and financial regulations. 
We discuss how most recordings historically went unreviewed, but AI transcription and analytics, such as Amazon Connect Contact Lens, now make it feasible to analyse 100% of calls for transcripts, sentiment, topics, summaries, compliance flags, evaluations, and structured reporting via data lakes.
We also highlight risks around governance, third-party AI, and the importance of PII redaction (including new screen recording redaction capabilities). 
The episode clarifies retention: audio in S3 isn’t deleted by Connect, but contact records become unsearchable after two years unless customers build indexing/search solutions. 
Finally, we discuss migration options and new AWS APIs enabling import of legacy recordings into Connect with conversational analytics, including constraints, quotas, and pacing considerations.
Find out more about CloudInteract at cloudinteract.io.

Send us Fan Mail
We recap the two-day Amazon Connect Customer Community event in London, noting that the agenda and partner conversations were overwhelmingly focused on AI, especially agentic AI, rather than traditional contact center topics.
We discuss workshops on setting up agentic AI and automating evaluations/quality monitoring, emphasizing that while building an agent can be fast, ongoing monitoring, measurement, and business change are critical.
Key themes from sessions and keynotes include AI agents evolving from rigid chatbots into collaborative coworkers that may orchestrate multiple agents, the provocative idea that an “AI boss” could arrive before an AI colleague, and “machine customers” where an AI acts on behalf of users and selects the most efficient experience. 
We highlight strong AWS investment signals, the value of in-person community access, and the urgency for organizations to start now.
Find out more about CloudInteract at cloudinteract.io.

Send us Fan Mail
Amazon Connect Forecasting, Capacity Planning & Scheduling (FCS) Explained — Native WFM, Agent Self-Service, Data Lake & Notifications
Tom Morgan and Alex Baker welcome Pavan Dusanapudi, a senior architect on the Amazon Connect team, to discuss Amazon Connect Forecasting, Capacity Planning, and Scheduling (FCS) and how it compares to workforce management.
 Pavan explains how FCS uses historical contact data and ML/AI to forecast volumes, plan staffing, and optimize schedules, emphasizing native, one-click enablement versus lengthy third-party WFM integrations. They cover agent-focused capabilities in Amazon Connect workspaces such as schedule viewing, overtime offers, time-off requests, and shift exchanges, plus a new schedule/activity notification feature using the Connect rules engine with email, tasks, and EventBridge destinations. 
The episode also highlights Amazon Connect Data Lake access for FCS data and use cases like adherence, payroll reporting, shift rotation equity, and scheduling metrics, and recommends piloting FCS in one business unit with available funding options and a 90-day free trial.
Find out more about CloudInteract at cloudinteract.io.