6th March 2025
For years, we’ve been hearing about how AI will make any number of jobs redundant, from secretaries to lawyers. Even though nothing major has come of these predictions as yet, pundits have proclaimed 2018 to be ‘the’ year chatbots make their mark.
This isn’t likely to be a night-to-day shift, but chatbots as secretaries, assistants and first-line support replacements are pegged to make a major appearance. Juniper Research predicts that chatbots will account for over $8 billion in enterprise savings by 2020. So why wouldn’t you want to jump at the opportunity to begin a potentially business-altering rollout?
While bots certainly have the potential to create this cost saving, you should try them for yourself and think about real-world experience before committing: it’s easy to do, you probably have one available to you on whatever device you’re reading this.
AI secretary-like assistants are already built into most major platforms; Microsoft’s Cortana, Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, and Google’s creatively named ‘Google Assistant’ are available. But do you use them?
Think about when you encounter chatbot-like features: primarily, these will be personal assistants and voice recognition switchboards. Do these actually leave you with a positive impression?
Without a doubt, the technology is improving, but look beyond the hype into the real world and ask yourself: will my customers actually want to interact with this?
Sources:
2018 is the year chatbots join the enterprise: https://venturebeat.com/2017/12/05/2018-is-the-year-chatbots-join-the-enterprise/
CHATBOTS INFOGRAPHIC – Key statistics 2017: https://www.juniperresearch.com/resources/infographics/chatbots-infographic-key-statistics-2017
These 5 Experts Share Their Predictions For Chatbots In 2018: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mnewlands/2017/12/27/these-5-experts-share-their-predictions-for-chatbots-in-2018/#69de9c221530