2016 saw rise of the Chatbots that would solve practically everything. Millions were invested by VC’s and all tech majors announced their own plans. However it has turned out to be a much harder problem than envisaged. Google admitted that 70% of its bot assisted conversations needed human support. Microsoft has to roll back ‘Tay’ its Twitter bot.
CBinsights has this report on the state of the Chatbot phenomena and amidst the gloom the bright spots are around applications in sales and CRM besides healthcare and fintech. Customer Service and helping visitors navigate websites better. There are successful experiments happening in the retail, e-commerce spaces and claim settlement and legal research.
Chatbots are good at repetitive tasks, alongside a supportive ‘GUI’, ‘structured but limited data’. To begin with the industry was more focused on ‘aspiration’ while the success is coming from specific ‘applications’. While the death of chatbots were predicted it turned out to be as early as the heralding of the rise of the Chatbots.
One area that I found untouched in the report was the audio assistants like Siri, Alexa and the likes. Perhaps another time.
Where I learnt this #337
Lessons From The Failed Chatbot Revolution — And 5 Industries Where The Tech Is Making A Comeback
https://www.cbinsights.com/research/report/most-successful-chatbots
