Conversational AI implementations continue to surge, with worldwide annual spending on the technology expected to reach $1.99BN this year.
Beyond 2022, Gartner forecasts that its usage will soar further, predicting that bots will reduce agent labor costs by as much as $80BN in 2026.
In line with this, the analyst expects conversational AI to handle one in every ten agent interactions by 2026. Considering that the technology only currently automates 1.6 percent of these conversations, this statistic is surprising.
However, Daniel O’Connell, VP Analyst at Gartner, points to staff shortages as a prominent reason to expect an uptick. He states:
Many organizations are challenged by agent staff shortages and the need to curtail labor expenses, which can represent up to 95% of contact center costs. Conversational AI makes agents more efficient and effective while also improving the customer experience.
Yet, it is worth remembering that bots may not automate entire customer contacts. Use cases where they gather information from customers at the start of an interaction and feed that through to a live agent will likely become more prominent to reduce handling times.
Such use cases are often a simple introduction to bots – especially voicebots - for many businesses. After all, automating entire conversations in a customer-friendly manner is still tricky – despite AI advancements and the rise of low-code/no-code tools.
Recent Zendesk research reflects this, finding that 60 percent of customers still suffer from frequent disappointment when interacting with chatbots.
These statistics highlight that conversational AI still has much maturing left to do, despite Gartner’s lofty estimations.
