The article was updated on April 02, 2024.
Support service has been the least automated part of many businesses for a long time. However, this situation changed in 2019 when companies faced huge workloads both online and on the phone. The emergence of chatbots for customer service was just a matter of time. Thanks to a new type of communication between consumer and brand, it was possible to optimize business processes, reducing costs and increasing customer satisfaction.
To this day, bots remain a true multifunctional tool since they can be used across various business points — 41% in sales, 37% in support, and 17% in marketing. Technologies have gone far beyond the well-known ChatGPT. There are completely new solutions that also allow companies to gain a competitive advantage.
In this article, we will talk about these applications and also answer the vital question — “What features should a chatbot have in 2024”? Before anything else, let’s address the market size of chatbots and how they affect businesses today.
AI chatbot market size
The market size of Conversational AI is growing slowly but surely and is expected to reach $1.3 billion by 2025. With its current compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of about 24%, chatbot technology continues to spread across new industries, filling the chatbot market with new cutting-edge solutions.
Businesses can’t deny the enormous potential of bots and the way they revolutionize customer service. This, in turn, encourages companies to invest more in the development of this technology.
At present, chatbots are mostly used to help small businesses. Such companies need minimal effort to add a third-party customer service bot. On the other hand, middle-sized companies and enterprises use a more complicated method of bot implementation. Although adapting custom software development to business specifics takes more time, it helps optimize the organization’s processes in the long run.
At the same time, voice-enabled bots change the future of chatbots and replace regular text-based conversational agents. Domino’s, Target, and even Starbucks have already implemented voice solutions in their business systems.
Therefore, it’s not surprising voice technology is changing the development of more efficient and, most importantly, more human-like bots. Meanwhile, the expectations of both businesses and their clients are also transforming.
What customers expect from chatbots
Customers play a key role in developing bots since they will also be the end users. As a result, you may now find more and more systems that meet such consumer expectations:
- Fast response time: One of the main reasons why people use bots is instant response time — 70% of consumers expect a response within minutes on a chat.
- Correct information: Customers always want to receive accurate recommendations and relevant information on service or product details, pricing, availability, etc.
- Problem-solving answers: Consumers use chatbot apps mainly to resolve issues and get effective answers that could work for them.
- Security: People expect they will communicate with a bot that follows data protection regulations and other security measures to safeguard their private information.
- Integration with human support: Customers appreciate the ability to transition from AI to human assistance when they need to submit a request or encounter problems requiring human attention.
What goals business owners expect to achieve with chatbots
Customer retention is one of the most crucial reasons why businesses use bots. A business can lose at least up to 75% of customers due to a long response to their request. However, AI can maintain the dialogue and gradually lead clients to the next stage of the sales funnel thanks to quick responses and comprehensive consultation.
Moreover, bot applications can be multi-channel and multi-lingual and are ready to answer around the clock, which also contributes to customer retention.
In addition, businesses seek to achieve other goals with AI chatbots:
- Increased sales: Companies want to get technology that can guide customers online, providing them with the necessary information to make a purchase or other targeted action.
- Improved customer service: Business owners look for bots that help increase customer satisfaction thanks to correct answers to customers’ queries and solving issues in real-time.
- Cost savings: Organizations need to automate customer support in order to save on labor and operational expenses.
- Enhanced user experience: Firms are eager to find AI that is able to remember user behavior patterns, guaranteeing personalized communication.
Chatbot trends you need to know about
The realm of technology transforms the business environment every day, influencing both the market and many industries. Some innovations remain in the past, while others become real breakthroughs.
To keep you in the loop with the latest trends, we have highlighted the most effective and must-have AI chatbot features.
1. Sentiment analysis
Bots with a sentiment analysis feature have more humanlike capabilities, which is why they are becoming more popular in 2024. Such bots can recognize sentiments or emotions expressed by user queries. In order to get this information, chatbots record the entire customer conversation to collect, normalize, and aggregate customer feedback data for further analysis.
The features of this NLP technology help bots
- recognize happy and annoyed users,
- modify their responses in view of the customer’s emotions, and
- provide personalized and effective customer support.
Analysis of customer behavior patterns allows bots to improve the user experience, which increases the likelihood of returning to the brand’s website.
2. Payment automation
Today, companies can use a bot that can securely communicate with customers and help them easily make payments in a few clicks. The instant payment feature allows companies to encourage customers to make a purchase and remains one of the emerging chatbot industry trends.
The functions of bots don’t end there, as the system can also provide customers with useful information and updates about their transactions, expenses, payment confirmation, and so on. All this together contributes to a high level of customer retention.
3. Multilingual support
As companies grow larger and reach more people from different parts of the world, customers eventually want to make conversations with bots in their own language. As a result, more and more businesses find it necessary to implement multilingual AI support that can communicate in at least 2 or 3 languages.
Following these AI chatbot trends, especially multilingual support, allow businesses to break down language barriers and strengthen customer relationships. Implementing a multilingual AI can also minimize errors in responses, increase support speed, and improve personalized communication.
4. Order confirmation & delivery tracking
For a long time, bots served only as consultation assistants. However, their capabilities have advanced and can now provide order confirmation and delivery tracking. These chatbot features provide buyers with real-time reports on information:
- delivery confirmation and status,
- changing or canceling an order,
- delivery and payment information, and
- problems with a delivery.
Previously, to find out such data, users had to receive a delivery number by email, then go to a company’s website and enter the number in the required section. But a chatbot allows customers to simplify this procedure, which makes this trend very useful in today’s fast-evolving world.
5. Integrating chatbots on WhatsApp
At this very moment, the number of WhatsApp users has exceeded 2 billion, while the open rate is 98%. This has created perfect conditions for the emergence of a new bot trend — integration with WhatsApp. This approach provides a convenient way to communicate with many users. In light of this, businesses can
- increase audience reach,
- boost customer support speed,
- reduce the load on the site, and
- automate the sales process.
This idea is great for e-commerce stores that seek to showcase and sell all their products online. By using simple QR codes or WhatsApp links on the store’s website, users can quickly access the bot for additional information about products, discounts, purchases, etc.
Top chatbot apps reshaping industries
With thousands of active bots, it is probably hard to say which will be the best one to use. However, we simplified this challenge and divided the bots into different categories. Each of them has a unique selling point and, most importantly, provides value to its users.
Without further ado, let’s delve into the most outstanding examples of AI chatbot apps in 2024.
1. Summarizing & brainstorming chatbot – Gemini
First up on our list of the most useful bots is Gemini — a powerful AI tool from Google. Using publicly available information from the Internet, Gemini can not only generate the text for an article and solve mathematical problems but also help with problems that require a unique solution.
The neural network can come up with original descriptions for pictures or find images based on queries from the network. At the same time, it is able to compose enticing emails.
A multifunctional bot can find and explain errors in program codes, make forecasts, and operate with scientific facts. Today this bot is widely used in the areas of copywriting and traffic arbitrage.
A tip from the pros – Start by adding a few tasks your bot can solve. After you are sure it can do them perfectly, gradually add other essential features.
2. Advanced customer support bot – Intercom
Intercom is a platform that is powered by large language models (LLMs) from OpenAI, which allows the system to provide customers with more accurate information. The AI chatbot assistant app is very often used for support to reduce the volume of calls to the human support team and increase conversions. Intercom can help you monitor user activity in real-time and send personalized messages based on their behavior.
Among the special features, you can find an AI-enhanced help desk, workflow builders, and help center articles. Intercom’s algorithms allow you to set up targeted communication with customers on the website, online and mobile applications, as well as by email.
A tip from the pros – Invest in personalized, tailored experiences to build loyalty within your user base and improve the efficiency of your support.
3. Best chatbot for employee retention – Amber
AI-powered people experience Amber, created by inFeedo, is an HR bot that replaces traditional annual surveys to collect employee feedback about work. The main task of the system is to maintain employees’ wellness and morale, which can help you attract and retain the best employees. Amber AI features include personalized surveys, automated employee support, and continuous engagement.
However, the main highlight of the bot is the sentiment analysis framework which can also communicate in more than 10 languages. To date, the AI bot has already interacted with more than 500,000 employees and has been introduced into 250 organizations. The system can be integrated with WhatsApp, Slack, internal, and HRMS systems.
A tip from the pros – Make sure to give your bot a personality. Focus on copy style, voice, and language.
4. Top chatbot for education – Socratic
Socratic powered by Google AI is an educational bot that was originally developed to help students. However, this free application is also in demand among teachers who aim to provide greater exposure to different types of learning materials for students. To start using Socratic, you can download this mobile application on iOS and Android.
Using text and speech recognition, users can utilize AI technology to receive visual explanations and answers related to subjects such as math, science, social studies, and others.
An educational AI chatbot app will be most useful for high school and university students who cannot receive assistance from their teachers, tutors, or parents but want to continue making progress in their education. With Socratic, users can get the best available online resources, step-by-step study guides, easy-to-understand videos, and much more.
A tip from the pros – Create your bot with a purpose, and help your users solve the most burning issues in an easy and convenient way. After all, that’s what chatbots are all about.
5. A modern bot for traveling – HiJiffy
HiJiffy is a conversational booking assistant that is capable of self-learning. This ready-made solution adapts to the company’s sales flow, allowing businesses to improve the guest experience.
With its help, travel agencies can carefully guide users through the booking process and provide answers to FAQs in an instant. Among other essential features of this bot, you can personalize the image of the booking assistant to improve brand awareness. Moreover, travel and hospitality companies can also customize the workflows involved in the booking process.
As for now, HiJiffy is recommended as one of the best chatbot apps among its competitors to search for relevant and detailed information about planned destinations based on users’ needs. This bot is in use by more than 1,600 hotels and helps monitor customers through various channels such as Facebook Messenger, Instagram, WhatsApp, WeChat, and others.
A tip from the pros – Know your competitors and strive to outperform them in a way that best appeals to your target audience.
6. Best AI chatbot app for creative writing – Claude
Claude is an AI chatbot powered by Anthropic’s LLM, Claude 2. The chatbot markets itself as a “helpful, harmless, and honest” model with carefully designed safety guardrails.
To create such a system, developers replaced human contractors with constitutional AI. This second AI model uses rules and principles to control Claude’s behavior, helping to make it more predictable, controllable, and user-friendly.
As a result, the chatbot is able to conduct complex dialogues, create long-form content, and write detailed instructions without providing potentially harmful information. Trained on a larger data set, Claude can also make extensive searches for information and produce creative content such as poetry, code, scripts, music, and emails.
A tip from the pros – Pay attention to making a harmless and error-free bot, prioritizing user safety and satisfaction.
7. Conversational Marketing & Sales Bot – Drift
Drift provides a powerful chatbot that will be a reliable assistant for communicating with customers, the main goal of which is making sales.
The selling bot not only attracts but also automatically qualifies website visitors in a simple and intuitive way. The system promptly passes the right prospects to employees from the sales department, scheduling a meeting with a potential client in the employee’s calendar.
All these AI features help create a personalized marketing experience and thus increase the company’s revenue and short sales cycles. Futhermore, Drift can collect data from every single customer interaction, which takes B2B conversations to a new level. Other advantages of the bot include multilingual support and multiple integrations like Salesforce, Google Meet, etc.
A tip from the pros – Keep track of all customer interactions with your chatbot to be able to identify and fix issues as soon as they arise. Always have a backup plan and be ready to step in if needed.
8. Innovative bot for banking – KAI Answers
Kasisto company owners brought its conversational AI platform to a new level by combining their KAI product with the latest GPT technology.
This large language model can understand financial preferences and behavior to address users in a human-like manner. From valuable insights on the strategy effectiveness of a company to new solutions to expand offerings, KAI-GPT can provide new opportunities for enhancing ROI.
The technology has found its place in the application called KAI Answers. This is one of the best chatbots that helps bankers interactively find, interpret, and understand information from a variety of sources, including regulations, banking procedures, web content, and complex financial products.
According to the chatbot developers, the accuracy of KAI’s answers can cover up to 90% of questions and help reduce live chats by 50%. Among regular users you can find such financial institutions as Wespac, Standard Bank, Absa, and others.
A tip from the pros – Never be afraid of creating something new and stay agile to new challenges.
9. Best eCommerce chatbot – Mona
Personal shopper assistant apps such as Mona have become a growing trend in the eCommerce market. Built by former Amazon.com employees, this AI app can handle the complete shopping process for you.
It is capable of searching over 100 websites for products that meet the user’s requirements, from the item types, styles, prices, sizes, and colors, to purchase and delivery. Moreover, Mona has advanced personalization capabilities and learns about individual preferences as the user shops with the app.
Provided as a standalone app, the chatbot is extremely useful and offers a number of additional benefits, such as easy checkout with ApplePay, free shipping, daily deals, and great customer service.
A tip from the pros – Invest in personalized, tailored experiences to build loyalty within your user base and improve the efficiency of your service.
AI chatbot – A must-have option for business
In a world that is becoming increasingly more digitized, using AI-powered assistants has become a norm. As businesses strive to keep up with growing customer demands, investing in chatbot development will soon be a must.
The examples of AI apps and chatbots that we have pointed out in this article provide valuable insights into this young but extremely promising market. By learning from the best, you will be able to increase your own chances for success. That is of course if you decide to build a chatbot app for your business. Thus, consider the success stories listed above and use their strategies to find your own way to the top.
If you are ready to dive into chatbot app development, contact us now!
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About the author:
Oleg Roberman, Chief of Delivery at Eastern Peak
With strong technical background and outstanding project leadership skills, Oleg helps Eastern Peak customers introduce competitive advantages and instill productive changes in every process by resolving complex business issues and managing multicultural teams through innovation and creative thinking.
