Control Hub AI Assistant
B2B/Generative AI
Product
Webex - Control Hub
Role
Product Designer
I led the evolution of Webex Control Hub’s AI Assistant from a simple help bot into a full conversational layer—adding threaded chats, Smart Search, and AI-powered report analysis—which boosted monthly usage by 120%, proving that thoughtful system-level design can directly drive efficiency and adoption.
Control hub
Webex Control Hub is the single pane of glass where IT administrators deploy, configure, and monitor the entire Webex Suite—Messaging, Meetings, Calling, and Contact Center.
In June 2024 the team introduced the first cut of the Control Hub AI Assistant (CHAI)—a help‑only chatbot.
Road Map
I joined just after that launch with a mandate to evolve CHAI into a strategic layer
I partnered with PM, engineering, and data science to build and ship the next chapters on our roadmap
CHAI 2.0
Single‑turn interactions made it impossible for administrators to keep context as new capabilities rolled out, and the blank welcome screen offered little incentive to explore. I introduced threaded conversations so admins could juggle multiple investigations, redesigned the empty state into an interactive “Explore” hub that showcased new skills, and unified the visual language with Cisco’s AI Design Guidelines.
Proactive AI
Instead of one-off cards, I’m proposing an AI Notification Platform to provide proactive AI insights to Control Hub users.
AI-powered global search
Thirty‑five percent of setting queries in Control Hub returned nothing, forcing admins to hunt manually. I crawled configuration APIs, generated vector embeddings, and paired them with LLM intent detection to match natural‑language queries to precise setting pages.
A “tunnel” affordance surfaced suggested follow‑up questions that opened CHAI for deeper help. The update slashed zero‑result searches by 80 % and now drives 14 % of total assistant entry points.
Report Analysis
When developing the assitnat’s next capabilities, I worked with the researcher to do a survey to guide the feature prioritization
Research shows that “Instant insights” ranked #2 & #3 by the admins
In Control Hub, we provide reports, but getting insights from the reports required downloading CSV files and manual analysis, which is time-consuming and inefficient.
I embedded “Ask AI” shortcuts directly into each report row. Clicking the sparkle icon button reveals a shortlist of context‑aware suggested questions—or admins can type their own. Either path launches CHAI, which pulls the underlying report data, answers in plain language, and, when helpful, renders sparklines or bar charts inline. Admins can now surface insights without exporting a single CSV.
AI-powered global search
Webex Control Hub is the single pane of glass where IT administrators deploy, configure, and monitor the entire Webex Suite—Messaging, Meetings, Calling, and Contact Center.
Troubleshooting
Research shows that admins expect AI help most when incidents strike, yet existing dashboards bury the signal in noise.
Meeting & Calling Troubleshooting
I am also working on the northstar vision of using AI Assistant to process complex data and troubleshoot meeting and calling.
Learning & Sharing
As the product designer working on the AI stuffs in the Control Hub team, sharing my knowledge designing AI and using AI in my design process also help me learn a lot.
Learning:
Embrace the ambiguity and keep Iteration.
Understand the technology and keep up with the trend
Design a system, not just component
Sharing:
