Top 5 Conversational AI Trends to Expect in 2022

We’ve all seen the rapid advancement and growth of technology all around us and as digital solutions become more adopted within our personal lives, more businesses are transitioning to digital-first solutions in the workplace too. 

The Covid-19 pandemic saw many organisations completely transform their operations by turning to technology to navigate through the crisis. Conversational Artificial Intelligence (Conversational AI) has had a huge part in this shift, by enabling businesses to automate workplace processes, increase accessibility and boost productivity.

As more businesses see the value of Conversational AI in the workplace, it’s clear that innovative solutions will continue to drive the future of workplace operations. Below are five Conversational AI trends we’re expecting to see in 2022.

1. Increased demand from businesses

A report from MarketsandMarkets has estimated that the global Conversational AI market size will grow from 6.8 billion USD in 2021 to 18.4 billion USD by 2026, at a Compound Annual Growth Rate of 21.8%. This is unsurprising since the demand for smarter ways of working continues to rise, and digital plays a huge part in this, having allowed businesses to adapt during the pandemic to enable remote operations. The demand for AI and automation in general has also significantly increased, with more companies recognising the capabilities of AI and the business benefits on offer, including lower costs, business model expansion, enhanced productivity and smarter operations. 

2. Improvements to the ‘total experience’

Conversational AI has often been thought of as a tool just for customer service. However, more organisations are recognising the business benefits of improving employee experiences as well as customer experience. Moving beyond just interacting with customers, Conversational AI solutions are allowing companies to improve productivity and morale across the entire workforce. Research from Gartner states that by 2024, organisations that provide a ‘total experience’ will outperform competitors by 25% in satisfaction metrics for both customer experience and employee experience. Research by Accenture also shows that CIOs and CTOs around the world believe Conversational AI tools will play a critical role in the enterprise architecture of the future and have the potential to make a huge impact on a company’s operations, with 57% agreeing that Conversational AI tools can deliver a large return on investment for minimal effort. 

3. Higher scalability

Most areas of tech are looking for quicker ways to build, and Conversational AI is no different. While no-code platforms have already been a trend for some time, most still require certain expertise on underlying concepts. As well as seeing a rise in client requests to have use-cases built quicker, more solutions will be looking for ways to become easier to configure or build. Systems built using constrained systems (which is currently the majority of chatbots) will need to be rebuilt to move away from scripting every interaction with users to more scalable solutions that can be easily modified rather than having to be rebuilt every time a business process changes. Conversational AI solutions will require less and less data in order to build a robust system for businesses. This will drastically reduce the building time required to ensure solutions are deployed as quickly as possible.

4. Greater accuracy and better voice experiences

As technology gets smarter, its capabilities do too. Using Natural Language Processing and Machine Learning, Conversational AI tools are able to understand not only what a user is saying, but also the intent behind it by triggering business logic. For example, smart voice-based tools can create an email, enter the content and send it, rather than just doing the content part. This technology has already come a long way from the traditional chatbot script and will continue to become smarter to enable non-linear conversations, making conversations smooth and seamless. Small chatbots that are only built using this traditional script will start to be replaced for smart solutions that can deliver on intent. 

5. Increase in competition

Gartner states by 2022, 70% of white-collar workers will interact with conversational platforms on a daily basis. As the demand for Conversational AI and automation tools increases, so will the number of companies offering voice-based solutions. We are expecting to see a lot more companies offering Conversational AI tools within the next two years, with  the global conversational AI market to grow with a CAGR of 22.07% over the forecast period from 2021-2027. It will therefore be very important for organisations to thoroughly research the capabilities of the tools on offer to ensure the solutions meet their requirements, and companies will have a responsibility to ensure their solutions can provide the right capabilities to provide value and meet expectations.
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What trends do you expect to see this year? Share your comments with us on Twitter and Linkedin.

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