July 06, 2017
July 06, 2017
Contributor: Susan Moore
Chatbots offer a number of compelling benefits to both employees and customers.
If you visit a Singapore government website in the near future, chances are you’ll be using a chatbot to access the services you need, as part of the country’s Smart Nation initiative. In Australia, Deakin University students now access campus services using its ‘Genie’ virtual assistant platform, made up of chatbots, artificial intelligence (AI), voice recognition and predictive analytics.
There’s significant hype about chatbots, but examples like these demonstrate how the rapid entrance of this technology into the market is having real impact. Chatbots are essentially the "apps" of voice and messaging platforms, defining how people converse with your digital business services and data.
Speaking ahead of the Gartner Application Architecture, Development & Integration Summit in Sydney, Magnus Revang, research director at Gartner, said the broad appeal of chatbots stems from the efficiency and ease of interaction they create for employees, customers or other users. The potential benefits are significant for enterprises and shouldn’t be ignored.
“While most of the chatbot hype focuses on customer-facing scenarios, there are significant benefits for employees too,” Revang said. “Chatbots need to be included in mobile app strategies to get ahead of this trend or it will disrupt patterns of employee interaction with no enterprise involvement.”
Four potential uses of chatbot platforms that exist in enterprises today include:
When considering potential uses, first assess the impact on resources. There are two options here: replacement or empowerment. Replacement is clearly easier as you don't need to consider integration with existing processes and you can build from scratch. Empowerment enhances an existing process by making it more flexible, accommodating, accessible and simple for users.
Also, consider the innovation potential. Business transformation often mandates, and certainly benefits from, solutions that use existing processes. However, more innovative solutions often require a new process or processes to improve productivity.
To add chatbots to your mobile application strategy:
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Recommended resources for Gartner clients*:
Four Use Cases for Chatbots in the Enterprise Now
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