Global retail spend on chatbots to reach $72bn by 2028, says report

By Alexander Chiejina

Global retail spending on chatbots will top $12 billion this year (2023) and then climb to $72 billion by 2028 with a significant portion of this growth to be fuelled by the advent of cost-effective open language models, most notably ChatGPT, in places like North America and Europe, says Juniper Research in its most recent report, “Chatbots: Market Forecasts, Sector Analysis & Future Strategies 2023–2028,” seen by Business A.M.

The chatbot industry has experienced rapid expansion in recent years with its need increasing as a result of the necessity to provide customer care 24 hours a day, seven days a week, as well as the desire to cut operating costs by assigning tasks to chatbots. This is also related to people’s preference for messaging apps over social networking websites, which is expanding.

According to the report, the future market demand is also anticipated to be quite high for chatbots created for messaging application integration, noting that additionally, as companies continue to automate their sales and customer support, chatbots are becoming more and more popular. Organisations can provide timely services at lower rates by using chatbots.

The use of messaging services has significantly increased in recent years, and it is predicted that they will soon outnumber social networking sites in terms of user base. Additionally, there has been tremendous progress in the area of natural language processing, which has eased the interactions between computer and human languages.

The chatbot’s ecosystem has several cross-linking elements that aid in optimal application use, the report noted, and added that, through the chatbot interface, users engaged with customer service communicate with the chatbot. The chatbot communicates with people using SMS, mobile applications, websites, and other channels. 

Chatbots are used on a variety of platforms, including standalone, websites, and third-party messaging apps. In standalone mode, bots are integrated with the enterprise’s software and applications. Users communicate with the chatbots that have been installed to submit requests or grievances to customer support.

The chatbot is a messaging service that was created using artificial intelligence and a set of rules and may be communicated with through a chat interface. There are two different kinds of chatbots: one that follows a set of rules, and the other that makes use of AI and machine learning techniques. In order to provide better customer support, some chatbots also feature voice recognition. Developers of chatbots are now incorporating analytics into their software to gain a deeper understanding of customer behaviour and purchasing habits.

Large neural networks that have been trained using a significant amount of web data and learn with little to no human supervision, make up open language models. In order to automate processes like customer service, marketing, and payment processing, they are included into chatbots.

According to the survey, small and medium-sized shops who previously couldn’t afford to invest in chatbots will see a significant increase in retail spending as a result of the development of open language models. Because of the significant expense of training AI-based algorithms, chatbots have generally been a low priority for omnichannel strategy, according to study author, Frederick Savage. 

ChatGPT, nevertheless, has considerably reversed this trend and made chatbot installation more affordable for smaller merchants.

The survey also predicts that despite making up only 53 percent of the global population, Asia Pacific will account for 85 percent of all retail spending on chatbots globally. Chatbots enjoy high levels of confidence as a retail channel since messaging apps like WeChat, LINE, and Kakao have developed solid relationships with a variety of online shops.

However, according to the report, expansion outside of Asia Pacific will be fueled by the introduction of open language models. As online retailers in other regions, such North America and Europe, integrate chatbots into retail activities, it is predicted that by 2028, 66 percent of spending would be attributed to the region. 

According to the survey, manufacturers should focus on online merchants in these two regions to maximise this growth outside of Asia Pacific.

By automating a portion of customer support and sales through the usage of chatbots, businesses will save a significant amount of money on labour expenditures. Instead of having to wait days for a response, customers prefer quick responses from customer support. Responding using a chatbot can significantly lower the risk of losing a customer. E-commerce businesses can use chatbots for returns and exchanges. Implementing chatbots may make it possible to automate about 35 percent of the individual tasks, which will significantly reduce annual expenditures.

Chatbot implementation is growing beneficial for many banking and financial organisations. The use of chatbots results in lower customer service costs and more cross-selling. The created chatbot must be safe and provide a convenient user experience for the banking sector. The BFSI sector’s chatbot market is being driven by developments in artificial intelligence together with a sharp rise in the number of messaging applications.

Customers in the e-commerce industry desire to learn about real-time price adjustments for the brands while they buy. These businesses are using chatbots more frequently because they keep customers interested and cut down on the length of time they spend purchasing. It enables e-commerce businesses to increase ROI by maintaining minimal operating costs.

In the current market environment, the major market players are engaged in a fierce competition to gain market dominance through the improvement of product and quality variation, which supports the growing market amalgamation through tactical actions like mergers, alliances, and acquisitions. To expand their product offerings and geographic reach, industry players have partnered strategically with suppliers and distributors.

Acuvate, Aivo, Artificial Solutions, Botsify Inc., Creative Virtual Ltd., eGain Corporation, IBM Corporation, Inbenta Technologies Inc., Next IT Corp., and Nuance Communications, Inc. are a few of the well-known companies in the worldwide chatbot market.