AI and automation are already having a growing impact on how brands manage customer and employee interactions. The business market for virtual assistants will grow 15 percent to more than $7 billion this year, according to a Gartner prediction. That growth is coming from companies looking to automate customer interactions, sure, but also increasingly in areas like advanced search and document insights, so that a user could say “pull up last year’s August sales” and an assistant could surface the relevant document.
In the long run, we believe that all enterprises across industries are poised to benefit from conversational AI solutions. This will only continue to grow as advancements in AI enable these systems to understand the unique language of their industry and business, automate tasks and extract even more precise insights from complex documents and data – without requiring sophisticated data science skills on the part of users. Additionally, advancements that enable companies to build deeper integrations and to break down internal data silos will result in better, more personalized experiences.
When it comes to customer care, the Covid-19 pandemic accelerated adoption of conversational AI solutions across industries, with many early adopters in retail, healthcare and financial services. For example, to help their customers navigate the Covid-19 vaccine rollout process, CVS Health engaged IBM Consulting and began using IBM Watson Assistant to respond a deluge of common customer questions about eligibility, side effects, needed documentation, and more. This freed up their human agents to handle more complicated issues. This is an extreme example, but as we shift back to a new “normal”, we see conversational AI playing a massive role in ensuring information, direction, and overall engagement is streamlined between the brand and the consumer.
Another area that we think is particularly ripe for disruption with conversational AI is in employee experience and productivity. Many organizations today are facing skills and labor shortages, and they are looking for ways to free up their employees to focus on higher value tasks. Conversational AI can play a key role in this space. Many employees in fields like HR, sales and marketing are constantly bogged down with repetitive tasks like scheduling meetings, updating calendars, requesting agendas, sending reminders, etc. With an intelligent automation solution that can be controlled using natural language, employees can automate these repetitive tasks and reclaim their time to focus on what matters most.