2019: Top 5 trends for B2B Conversational AI

Conversational AI is taking the B2B business by storm, 2019 will be a big year for conversational AI in the form of chatbots, AI assistants, voice bots and more. These automated, on-demand experiences are fast, intuitive, and fiscally efficient.

This is the first blog for my Conversational AI series, the next topics will be focused on how conversational AI can boost customer engagement, sales, support, workflow automation, research and more.

I have identified five trends that I expect to see in the conversational AI space this year, but first…What is Conversational AI?

Conversational AI is artificial intelligence that conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods. Basically, it is a computer program designed to simulate conversation with human users (for the most part). Natural language processing (NLP) is used to navigate conversations, such as voice assistants or chatbots. You’ve probably come into contact with conversational AI already, Alexa is a form of voice bot. With new advancements in the technology, you’ll be having conversations with bots that are more intuitive, more – shall we say – human. 

Why Conversational AI for Businesses: On-Demand everything 

Many of the current online experiences businesses are providing their customers don’t align with the way that today’s consumers prefer to buy. Customers now expect to be able to find the information they’re looking for and have their questions addressed immediately and with the least possible resistance. Conversational AI provides real-time, on-demand solutions that address these customer needs. Due to advancements in artificial intelligence, conversational AI has become vital to customer service channels. To stay ahead of this digital transformation, your business must adapt to your customers’ needs. 

 Conversational AI in 2019

 There is a wealth of information about conversational AI available to you already. So, without further ado, let’s dive right into our top five predictions for 2019. 

1.     Conversational AI goes beyond the term “chat bots”

 Chatbots have been around for some time. You would be hard pressed to find someone who has yet to come into contact with one. But it seems that there are some negative connotations to the name “chatbot” because of the lack of effective chatting that took place with the early versions.

 Luckily, things are changing. Thanks to the implementation of artificial intelligence-driven technology now, customers are able to do virtually anything, from handling payment arrangements, to renegotiating a mortgage rate all with a bot. Bots can serve as an IT help desk, alleviating some of the burden on IT. They can set up sales calls, surface relevant information and cut down unnecessary manual intervention.

 Today bots have many uses; from enabling the automation of many tasks and utilizing conversation as the interface for both customers and employees. Conversational AI takes this to the next level, they are a category of AI-based application solutions that learn from us to help coordinate, answer questions, listen, observe, and anticipate.

 AI can now implement Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Understanding (NLU). With NLP and NLU, conversational AI assistants have the flexibility to understand the various ways a customer may phrase a question. Even if a customer phrases their question vaguely, the AI assistant can understand and address the issue. In other words, the valuable conversational-element to chatbots will finally come to fruition, deeming the service to be conversational AI in 2019.

 2.     Usage of conversational AI spikes as compared to conventional apps

 I am expecting a decrease in app downloads and a drive for businesses to build more conversational AI assistants for customer engagement in 2019. Many businesses have tried to utilize mobile apps to engage their customers, but B2B app downloads have fallen significantly. 

 Instead, customers prefer to engage with your system to buy solutions/services via conversational AI assistants. While these assistants are well known for push-notifications and direct communications, they are also a simple way for customers to start and stop engagement at their convenience. This leads us to expect a surge in influence of conversational AI in 2019.

 This shift makes a lot of sense, as customers can either install and launch an app or just message a chatbot just like a human contact via the messaging app and they can to hail a cab, reserve travel or approve a PO. And as we are already seeing, conversational AI assistants / bots are cheaper to build and run than a full-featured app.

3.     Robotic Process Automation (RPA) and conversational AI work together

 Robotic Process Automation (RPA) is a new development in business automation that many decision makers are turning to in order to streamline enterprise solutions and reduce costs. By utilizing RPA, businesses can configure bots to capture and interpret applications for processing transactions, manipulating data, triggering responses and communicating with other digital systems.

 By combining the rigidity of RPA with the versatility of conversational AI, we create the potential to force a more guided and process-driven, rather than a conversation-driven flow of activities. Enterprises can also increase their automation by injecting RPA with cognitive technologies such as ML, speech recognition, and NLP, automating tasks that previously required the judgment capabilities of humans.

 Gartner predicts that by 2020, automation and artificial intelligence will reduce employee requirements in business shared-service centers by 65 percent. This suggests that RPA and conversational AI will merge together nicely in order to streamline enterprise processes. 

 4.     Conversational AI usage inside enterprise increases

 As if the implications in this blog aren’t enough already, we’ll write it out in plain language just in case. We predict that conversational AI usage inside enterprises will sky-rocket in 2019. Oracle conducted a study that found, “When asked which emerging technologies they are already using and which they intended to implement, 80% of respondents said they already used or planned to use chatbots by 2020.” The survey also showed that decision makers are turning to the broader umbrella of automation technologies, which includes chatbots, for things like sales, marketing, and customer service.

 Important to B2B, bots are essential investment targets. Fund clients have been taking a liking to investments in inner business processes optimizations. For example, HR-department chatbots.

 5.     Data privacy and conversational AI

 Data privacy is understandably a hot topic lately. I believe that conversational AI will help dispel some of the doubts of reliability that enterprises are struggling with regarding data privacy.

 Artificial Intelligence is known for its capacity to gather information without consent. Many are worried about whether they can trust bots not to leak data that it collects. A great deal of this gathering is passive in order to inform the training of the AI and is not always covered by consent. To avoid data breaches, companies must set up heavy security processes and respect them. Conversational AI can also provide terms, conditions and privacy policies that have clear links, directly from the interface.

Thanks for taking the time to read the blog, please reach out if you have any feedback or questions. Lookout for some big Conversational AI announcements from Social27 very soon….