Chatbot Trends for 2020

In 2019, institutions understood the “conversational AI” concept and the value that an AI-based chatbot provides; began to implement it in certain use cases. In many sectors, conversational AI and chatbots are considered as an important initiative for growth and innovation. In 2020, we, as CBOT, think that expectations around conversational AI will get mature and become more realistic; in addition, successes and failures will help us to clarify the most appropriate use cases for this technology. In this blog, we want to share our ideas and predictions for 2020 to make a clearer picture in terms of conversational AI and chatbots.

1- AI based chatbot vs rule based chatbot

As CBOT, we think that rule-based chatbots can be successful for some very basic tasks, but they are inadequate to fully satisfy the customer needs. In the upcoming period, basic rule-based chatbots will go on to be used for some functions, whereas AI-based chatbots will be required for an enhanced customer or employee experience. The AI companies that have the know how in technology and design to overcome more complex scenarios by conversational AI will be the ones who carry this field one step further. Of course, successful implementations are another factor that encourages the companies who consider to develop or partner with vendors for conversational AI solutions. As the number of successful use cases increases globally, it creates an exponential effect on the new projects.

2- No code or low code platforms

As the companies’ appetite to communicate with their customers through conversational ways rise, platforms that make it possible to prepare a chatbot and update it easily according to the changing needs without requiring any coding also increase. Thanks to these platforms, companies are now able to create their own bots with a few drag-and-drop operations or a few clicks and make the necessary changes when necessary. We think that these platforms will be seen around more and more in 2020 and beyond.

3- Enterprise level assistants

The shrinking profit margins and advanced opportunities offered by technology in many sectors force companies to take smart and technology-oriented initiatives to increase their productivity. The most prominent of these is the automation of simple, routine but time consuming tasks within the company to increase efficiency. As of 2020, we will witness more of these tasks performed by AI-based virtual assistants enabling the employees to focus on more value-added jobs. These kind of bots both perform basic tasks and augment the employees for the more complex ones, by providing technical information for instance.

4- Master Bots

As the chatbots that target the employees within the internal systems of the institutions increase, the need for a “master bot” that takes over the orchestration of these bots and enable the user to perform all the operations with a single interface also increases. Such systems will always communicate with the user by positioning the “master” bot on the front, that will understand the user’s request, and invite the specialized bots such as HR bot, financial bot, IT help desk bot on the back to the dialogue and ensure that the request of the user is performed. As of 2020, we will see such structures at the enterprise level more.

5- Rise of personalization 

Now, we begin to see chatbots that know the context, needs, preferences and the past conversations of the user and can drive a dialogue accordingly. In addition, we will see chatbots that can maintain a dialogue on more than one topic at a time and switch between topics as the dialogue goes on. As chatbots that can sense various emotions of people emerge, companies will be able to use a chatbot as a sales channel besides a marketing or a support channel. Thanks to its intent follow up and intent change features, CBOT’s chatbot can drive more humanized and sophisticated dialogues.

6- Messaging platforms as digital hubs of our daily lives

Another area that we have observed in recent years and believe that will accelerate in 2020 is about the mobile world. We all install a lot of apps, but we rarely use most of them. Our phones are full of forgotten mobile applications. This situation causes resource inefficiency, for both companies and users. In 2020, we think that the era of “apps for each different task and function” will gradually close, and messaging platforms and voice assistants will host many companies. These platforms will be the digital hubs of our daily lives where we can perform many daily tasks just by chatting or talking with the virtual assistants with no need for installing a new app.

7- Rich Communication Services: RCS

Existing SMS models are insufficient for today’s user who is used to multimodal communication, including voice, photo and video sharing. Today, platforms that can provide such multi-mode communication beyond plain text are more popular for all segments of users. We think that the RCS service offered by Google, which enables the user to create correspondence groups, share images / videos, will become widespread globally in 2020 and will be a medium where many AI-based chatbots are located enabling the companies communicate with their customers. The most important advantage of RCS, which offers services similar to WhatsApp and WeChat, is that it does not require an internet connection and is open to all mobile phone users. By all these characteristics, RCS is a very suitable platform for chatbots. CBOT is Google’s first RCS partner in Turkey, and among the top 20 globally.

8- IoT integrated conversational experiences 

We think that new technologies will deeply affect people’s habitats and lives. 2020 will be a year that we observe important developments in this regard and see a considerable progress towards “people-centered smart spaces” as stated by Gartner. A bot that communicates with the user proactively triggered by the information from the IoT systems, and transmits the requests received from the user to the IoT systems again, and ensures that the requested task has been completed is something that we will see in the upcoming period. Even we predict that it will become widespread on the way to 2030. We are talking about fully automated systems and machines that exchange information with each other, communicates with the user in a conversational way, where no human intervention takes place.

9- Optimization of AI Training & Testing 

AI training with different scenarios is a very important component of bot development projects. Automatically generating training data becomes a differentiating factor for a bot company and leverages the competitive power of this company. In the near future, we think that generating training data will be more prominent and companies with this competence will be able to produce more qualified products more efficiently in very short time to market. One of the factors that make CBOT achieve high success rates and be able to go live fast is that it automates the task of generating training data and testing the AI systems.

10 – Analytics of conversational AI based systems

When a chatbot interacts with the user, it can collect important information regarding the context, needs, demands and priorities of this use. It is crucial as the chatbot can transfer this information to the CRM system of the company to be used for smarter offers that increase the sales and revenues. In the upcoming period, we expect that this kind of data collecting and CRM integrated chatbots will be demanded by the companies. Therefore, capabilities in terms of integration to the internal systems and providing analytics for bot activities will be important differentiating factors for a chatbot vendor. CBOT differentiates from the competition by these important features.