Chatbot Markets Poised for 'Exponential Growth'

Research firm Acute Market Reports expects the global chatbot market to undergo "exponential growth" through 2030, spurred by mounting popularity of interactive online channels, the need to improve customer relationships, and research dedicated toward integrating them with messaging platforms.

The chatbots market, still in infancy, is still primarily limited to large enterprises, according to the research, which found the penetration of chatbots among small and mid-sized businesses (SMBs)to be "fairly sluggish."

In 2020, the large enterprise segment accounted formore than 80 percent of the global market, the research found. Acute Market Reports expects that trend to continue, though it says the advancements in technology and the rising popularity of interactive online channels will take chatbots deeper into the SMB segment.

Amopng the types of chatbots available, the market research firm found a large preference for stand-alone chatbots that run on a single computer, controlling certain functions, retrieving documents, or playing media files. Stand-alone chatbots, it said, have an appealing graphical interface, easy use, and simple installation process.

The down side to stand-alone bots is that in most setups today, the bot is not completely your-own, it limiting the degree to which users can personalize them, the report said.

On the other hand, Web-based chatbots, which operate on remote servers, giver users more control over personality, behavior, and hosting. However, they are more difficult to set-up, and additional features, such as voice recognition and text-to-speech, are either unavailable or are limited.

The research also found that North America accounts for more than 35 percent of the global chatbot market value, a trend that it says is likely to continue. Asia Pacific, though, is poised for robust growth, outpacing Europe and North America as the major chatbot market by 2030. As manufacturers and software developers seek to gain first-mover advantage, Acute Market Research expects increased technology penetration and intensifying competition in the emerging economies of Asia, the Middle East, and Latin America.

The report identified Microsoft, Facebook, Amazon, Google, Yahoo, Apple, Helpshift, and Haptik as leading providers of chatbot technology.