Has Intelligent Assistance Entered the Trough of Disillusionment?

A few weeks ago, Gartner revealed a pretty stunning prediction: by 2020, 40% of bots and virtual assistants launched in 2018 will have been abandoned. This development was actually pretty predictable. Core technologies to build intelligent assistants have matured rapidly and are widely available.

It triggered a vendor “gold rush” building chatbots. In addition, many scripted bots declared themselves intelligent, adding confusion in the marketplace. Companies implementing chatbots are finding it much harder than they expected, thus the current adjustment.

Chatbots and virtual agents are here to stay!

Gartner also predicted rapid penetration of these solutions, from less than 2% last year to over 25% in 2020. There are several fundamental trends driving this adoption. The volume of customer interactions continues to rise while expectations of rapid service grow. Enterprises must harness self-service and automation to scale their customer service. Conservational dialogs make the assistance experience enjoyable and companies more accessible.

The “conversation” needs to shift to what it takes to make an intelligent assistant project successful.

Submit your question as on April 25 Jacada is holding an interactive webinar to address YOUR questions and more.