As we enter 2020 and embrace a brand new decade, technology acceptance is continuing to accelerate for a broad range of industries. This second derivative effect is prevalent in the adoption of AI-powered chatbots for business applications – messaging, healthcare, customer service, toys, etc. To give our readers a glimpse of what may be coming, I reached out to our friends in the big data ecosystem to get their predictions and comments. The reflections below offer some thought-providing directions. Enjoy!
“’Hey Google’ or ‘Alexa’ are becoming common voice commands in many homes. Voice interaction through digital assistants or chatbots are creating a far-reaching shift in the way people interact with brands using AI assisted devices,” commented data virtualization provider, Denodo. “This is possible because of AI-driven technology that helps machines understand and interpret human language as it is spoken. Natural Language Processing (NLP) is component of artificial intelligence that aide in the analysis of human language. 2020 will usher in the practice of voice-support platforms using NLP and AI-based conversational analytics to help organizations to improve personalization and targeting through deeper consumer insights. Conversation analytics is a technology that transliterates voice interaction through natural language query and converts it into data. This data is structured so that conversations can be analyzed for insights. With machine-learning trained systems, conversational analytics will continue to help organizations to improve their chatbots and voice applications in 2020 resulting in better data-driven decisions and improved business performance.”
“Chatbot soup is inevitable, creating an even larger problem,” commented Pat Calhoun, Espressive CEO. “The presence of chatbots is exploding across the enterprise which is going to create a bigger issue for everyone. If you think about it, the issues with portals were not just the fact that employees were having a hard time with them, but it’s also that they were everywhere. Every department had one. There were also a lot of resources spent in building portals—both adding knowledge articles as well as maintaining them. Overall, the experience was horrible. Now fast forward to next year, and I think the bigger problem that we are going to see is an explosion of chatbots across the organization which is what we call “chatbot soup.” Unlike portals where there is typically one portal per department, what we are now seeing is that departments are actively deploying chatbots for individual applications as well as to support departmental functions. So, think Oracle, think Workday, think SAP. Every one of them have their own embedded chatbot. On top of that, departments are also deploying their own chatbot. My prediction in 2020 is that there’s going to be so many chatbots that employees will simply get frustrated, not know where to go, and resort back to email and phone calls because the experience will be different across every chatbot. The level of effort required for all the departments to maintain these chatbots, making sure that they are providing high accuracy and the right level of responses is simply going to be too high. This in the end will end up being a true nightmare for most CIOs.”
“Chatbots will see a resurgence in popularity,” commented Lexalytics’ CEO Jeff Catlin. “In 2016-2017, chatbots were the future of business. But when the high expectations met the technical brittleness of technology, the market quickly cooled on the idea. 4 years later better NLP algorithms and a more mature technological infrastructure means we’ll start seeing some notable success stories and enthusiasm will climb.”
“Voice search will become a key component of the customer experience,” commented Nali Giliana, Vice President of Digital Experience at OpenText. “In 2020, as much as 80% of total customer interactions will be made by AI. Data generated from these interactions will help marketers a great deal in creating more authentic digital communication experiences beyond traditional digital channels. Voice search, in particular, will see significant uptake next year due to its simplicity, and with the adoption of AI-supported intelligent assistants like Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa slated to expand, brands will face added pressure to change the design of their customer experience to include voice search.”
“Insight engines will become a constant companion,” commented Daniel Fallmann, founder and CEO of Mindbreeze. “According to Gartner, by 2022, 40 percent of employees will consult AI agents before making decisions in day-to-day business. Conventional softwarebots can’t handle this task because, in reality, they don’t have anything to do with AI and only operate according to a manually created and stored decision tree. Conversely, insight engines can take advantage of the strengths of real AI. In 2020, employees will thus increasingly use this forward-looking technology to fill the role of a personal assistant.”
“Chatbots will be your new assistant,” commented Dave Wright, Chief Innovation Officer of ServiceNow. “The advancement of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) will make bot-to-bot communication so effective that human involvement will no longer be required for several business processes. Enterprise-grade bots can automate time-consuming tasks such as ordering supplies, paying vendors, and invoicing clients by using a messaging platform to manage these activities. Chatbots powered by AI will make it possible to give every employee a personal assistant to help with tasks such as booking business travel, scheduling meetings, and managing to-do lists. Whole departments will rely on chatbots as part of their larger digital transformation strategies.”
“Conversational AI interfaces will become the new standard in customer experiences,” commented Philip Say, VP of Innovation Product Management, Sutherland Labs. “At the same time, conversational AI interfaces – from text and chatbots to voice assistants – will leverage more robust machine learning technologies, making them more predictive and allowing businesses to serve customers more quickly and efficiently. Adoption of voice search will be spurred by improvements in natural language processing, bringing voice search to the forefront in 2020 as consumers become more accustomed to interacting with voice-activated smart devices like Google Home and Amazon Echo.”
“The journey of the bots and their mainstream adoption:In 2020, the average consumer may just converse with a chatbot more than they speak with coworkers, family members or even their spouse, as the demand for an instant response at any time continues to bubble up,” commented Zachary Jarvinen, Head of Technology Strategy, AI and Analytics at OpenText. “Chatbots will prevail as one the next preferred digital interface with their advanced contextual capabilities that can personalize any experience through deep learning. In 2020, chatbots will dominate human interactions more than ever before, and in order to keep up, almost every consumer facing business that wants to stay competitive will incorporate these human-like AI personas into their service. Additionally, chatbot implementation will also expand into the workplace in new ways to help with recruiting, training (via knowledge assistants), and overall efficiency (via virtual assistants), becoming more intertwined with all facets of life.”
“Chatbots will be your new assistant,” commented Dave Wright, Chief Innovation Officer of ServiceNow. “The advancement of Natural Language Understanding (NLU) will make bot-to-bot communication so effective that human involvement will no longer be required for several business processes. Enterprise-grade bots can automate time-consuming tasks such as ordering supplies, paying vendors, and invoicing clients by using a messaging platform to manage these activities. Chatbots powered by AI will make it possible to give every employee a personal assistant to help with tasks such as booking business travel, scheduling meetings, and managing to-do lists. Whole departments will rely on chatbots as part of their larger digital transformation strategies.”
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AI chatbots aren’t a replacement for real human interactions, though. Bots are better at augmenting these interactions and are best utilized to simplify tasks and remove repetition from workflows. Human agents should handle conversations where someone is navigating a complex purchase or upgrade or is feeling frustrated or confused. Learn More:
Chatbots can never replace a human being but yes it can help to maximum extent. Chatbots can bring a lead but yes conversion can be better done by a human being.
Very informative article and interesting predictions on chatbots. I agree The chatbots are best used in service desk, help desk and contact centers. Our Tryvium bots and its engagement layer is built on MS Teams, directly increases your RoI for MS Teams. It also integrates with leading ITSM & HRIS tools to provide meaningful automations and insights.
That was a great read! I believe that as a business, you must invest in chatbot technology so that you don’t have to see your customers departing to your competition.