The Chatbot Landscape Shifts Again

With the technology and market landscape changing fast, it seems like a good idea to see what’s changed over the last twelve months. What does 2019 and beyond have in store for those seeking to improve their business through the use of AI and chatbots?

This time last year, we saw rapidly increasing adoption of bots; a push to AI and NLP; and an increased focus on user needs, as businesses stopped navel gazing at what they could get out of using a bot.

All of those remain true in 2019, notably the move to artificial intelligence and natural language processing. But the future has its own set of opportunities and challenges for chatbot vendors, businesses that need bots and the customers that use them.

2019 is All About the Data

Over 2018, there was a daily string of press releases about bots, heralding new launches from companies big and small. Toward the end of the year, we saw stats being published from those companies highlighting the success of their bots, as the dashboards lit up. As we get more hard data on cost savings, productivity, customer satisfaction and other benefits, this will encourage those lagging behind to get on the chatbot bandwagon.

While it may take some time for them to achieve the kind of results we are seeing, the arrival of more data in the public domain, not tucked away in private briefings or white papers that no one reads, further adoption will bring yet more data, and so on.

AI is the New King

Having talked about AI to death in recent years, the technology is finally starting to come good across a broad swathe of business use cases, beyond the usually cited cases of Netflix and Amazon. If a Harley Davidson dealer can increase sales by close to 3000% using AI tools, the rest of the world will be taking notice.

While any business can use AI tools, the key to success if having the right data to analyse and have the right questions to ask whatever AI service your business adopts. That means there will be a high rate of early disappointment, but when it comes to chatbots, AI is a solid and proven use case though natural language processing (NLP), machine learning and deeper services that analyse user intent and meaning.

If your team or department wants to prove the value of AI to the board or project approvers, an AI bot is probably the most likely way to achieve results. When it comes to some areas like healthcare, there are several other obstaclesin the way to adoption, 2019 will be a year to address these and prepare the landscape through careful development and legal consideration.

Government Shutdowns and Brexit Drive Bot Adoption

Skipping the political minefield, the closing down of the US government has seen millions of citizens turning to online sources to find information as their local government offices close. We see that chatbots are taking much of the strain, and operate via the cloud even as some sites shut down.

Other governments and businesses will take note of this highlight among the morass of bad news, and will look to enable bots for their critical information services. The same goes for Britain and Brexit. Whatever happens, as the UK Government struggles to extricate itself from decades of progress with their EU partners, bots can provide valuable information without requiring massive investment.

Chatbots can provide information as government departments and trade bodies are decimated or overly busy trying to work out how they operate in whatever business and regulatory environment follows. Bots will be able to provide people with the latest news, advice and information, without hassling the overworked staff.

Call it disaster capitalism, post-traumatic economics or whatever, but bots are proving themselves in this minefield as a useful resource that people can rely on. Governments and business will be heavily criticised if they can’t provide a minimum level of information during the next bout of chaos or when a product-based, or local technical or natural disaster hits.

Clouds on the horizon for chatbots?

Not everyone believes the curve of the graph if chatbot success is sharply upwards. Forrester has made a prediction that there will be a backlash against Chatbots in customer experience. They have a point, in that many businesses, especially SMEs, can have a cavalier approach to deploying a chatbot: make it quick, throw it out, solve the communication problem at a stroke. Inevitably, there are going to be a lot of bots created this year that, put simply, are not very good. Bots that leave customers unimpressed and without the answers that they have been seeking. Even so, on the whole, we can expect satisfaction levels to rise as they did in 2018, if not more rapidly. Why? Because for all their faults, the immediate response of a chatbot is a much better experience than long waits on hold from a phone call. Moreover, all of us are becoming more aware of the benefits of bots (my kids love asking Siri for jokes) and aware of their limitations (equally, they love to stump Siri). Other research, such as that from Forbes continues to predict AI and chatbots will drive marketing in 2019, while Oracle believes that chatbots in 2019 will save businesses over $8 billion per year.

2019 in a Nutshell

In 2019, we will see more chatbots proving their worth in the marketplace. Growing demand will see vendors like SnatchBot expanding their product to meet customer needs. Through all this the end user consumers and customers will become increasingly used to chatbots as part of their lives and tolerate them as the cost of doing business, or embrace those that add value to their lives.

At this point every business needs to decide if their next bot is a mere cog in the machine, or a more valuable tool capable of adding more value to interactions. Those that choose the later will be the big success stories for 2019 and beyond, perhaps the biggest lesson to learn.