Chatbot Market - Growth, Trends, COVID-19 Impact, and Forecasts (2021 - 2026)

Market Overview

The chatbot market was valued at USD 17.17 billion in 2020, and it is projected to reach USD 102.29 billion by 2026, registering a CAGR of 34.75% over the forecast period, 2021 - 2026. Virtual assistants are increasing because of deep neural networks, machine learning, and other advancements in AI technologies. Virtual assistants, such as chatbots and smart speakers, are used for various applications across several end-user industries, such as retail, BFSI, healthcare, etc. For instance, the banking sector has been a significant adopter of newer technologies, primarily due to reliance on speed, trust, and communication. Chatbots in the banking sector facilitates communication and build customer relation through cognitive analytics by learning customer’s thinking for instant response.

• A chatbot is basically an artificial intelligence-powered application that converses with a human being to solve a problem or to answer a certain query. This reduces the operational time and enhances efficiency, which aids the market growth. According to Salesforce, 69% of consumers prefer to use chatbots for the speed at which they can communicate with a brand.
• Moreover, the demand for voice-activated smart devices is gaining high traction due to high convenience and fully automated processes. In January 2020, Google launched Meena, an AI chatbot. It is a multi-turn open-domain chatbot trained end-to-end on data mining. The neutral network of Meena contains about 2.6 billion parameters.
• Chatbots are poised to grow at a significant rate, owing to which the companies are ready to adopt the technology to their existing business portfolio. According to MIT technology review, 90% of the business reported faster complaints resolution with the bots.
• Chatbot adopters are looking towards establishing such connections with their customers to leverage long-term relations for a steady stream of revenues. This has led to the incorporation of their customer service through diverse major messaging applications, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. According to a study by Accenture Digital, 57% of businesses claimed that chatbot delivers large return on investment on minimal investment.
• Chatbots are increasingly deployed in various end-user industries such as healthcare, BFSI, and retail. For instance, in September 2019, YES Bank, an Indian Private sector bank, introduced YES ROBOT, an artificial intelligence-enabled chatbot to support its customers. Developed by Microsoft, YES ROBOT enables customers to perform financial and non-financial banking transactions by using conversational AI, which has extensive financial knowledge.
• In January 2020, QliqSOFT, specializing in secure, HIPAA-compliant clinical communication solutions, announced the launch of its healthcare chatbot platform, Quincy. Quincy offers chatbot templates that address care-specific use cases that include pre-configured intents and dialogue flows or customized chatbots that can be built to suit unique customer needs. As a chatbot platform, Quincy enables healthcare providers to build and deploy HIPAA-compliant, AI-driven, conversational chatbots that help them put more care-related information in the hands of their patients, facilitate self-service, improve workflow, drive better outcomes, and reduce costs.
• With the recent outbreak of COVID-19, the chatbot has been increasingly deployed by various organizations to respond to customer queries and other related information. As the different organization has adopted remote working due to lockdown imposed in states/countries, the company are heavily dependant on chatbots to reduce the burden of customer query due to minimal availability of customer service employees.
• Also, the chatbot is providing millions of people with the necessary information pertaining to COVID-19 daily. For instance, in April 2020, the WHO has launched a Facebook Messenger version of its WHO Health Alert platform that offers instant and accurate information about COVID-19 via Facebook’s global reach.

Scope of the Report

A chatbot is artificial intelligence (AI) software that can simulate a conversation (or a chat) with a user in natural language through messaging applications, websites, mobile apps, or the telephone. The report covers various end-user segments such as BFSI, healthcare, travel, and hospitality, where chatbots are deployed across various geographies.

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Key Market Trends

Healthcare Sector is Witnessing Significant Growth

• The massive adoption rate of artificial intelligence (AI) has been used to focus on customer satisfaction with the introduction of chatbots. Healthcare service providers are continuously partnering with chatbot companies to assist the patients better. The average number of patients spends about 30 minutes trying to find out the right service that their local hospital can provide, and the average nurse spends 1 hour a day trying to connect to the right doctor.
• Chatbots are being used by leading health systems to facilitate a fully conversational discovery of their services and enable seamless scheduling for their patients. With similar ease, providers are now able to track specialists and set up referrals through a single conversation with the help of conversational AI agents. For instance, the Gyant chatbot asks patients to understand their symptoms and then sends the data to doctors, who provide diagnoses and prescribe medicine in real-time. In March 2019, the company reported that it prompted over 785,000 people in Latin America to complete a pre-diabetes screening successfully.
• Chatbots, the healthcare service providers, are proactively engaging their patients with recent in-patient procedures and chronic conditions such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, arthritis, etc. With a slew of advice ranging from medication reminders and lifestyle changes to mood tracking and wellness program enrollments, our service providers are able to increase patient satisfaction drastically and cut down on readmission rates.
• In a healthcare space, chatbots provide simplicity and convenience for consumers, contributing to better labor, productivity, and connection to providers. For instance, Northwell Health is attempting out chatbots to help patients navigate oncology care, and Premera Blue Cross recently launched Premera Scout, a chatbot to help patients understand their benefits. Also, the Mayo Clinic is delving deeper into the technology by researching voice-activated bots.
• In the current market scenario, there are several mobile applications that use AI for chatbot facilities or image analysis that are increasingly becoming popular among mobile users. For example, consider the case of Babylon, a prominent mobile application based on AI that enables users to use an intelligent chatbot to help and relate symptoms and reach a relevant doctor through video chat.

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