The global rush to implement chatbots accelerated dramatically since the pandemic as organizations struggled to keep up with increasing online customer demands in real-time on a 24/7 basis. The pressure to keep costs down, satisfy an accelerating number of customers, and streamline operational functions sent the global chatbot market skyrocketing from $3.6B in 2020 to an estimated $10.4B by 2025 with a 29.7% CAGR, according to Market Data Forecast.

AI (artificial intelligence) chatbots, also known as Conversational AI and Virtual Assistants, carry on interactions using voice and text on websites and apps, and on communications platforms like WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Slack and dozens more. They provide consistently correct answers and personalized customer experiences, and can analyze customer sentiment and even “hand off” calls to live agents should questions become more complicated or sophisticated than they have been trained to recognize.

According to the book “Transform Your Business with AI Chatbots,” authored by Gustavo and Ricardo Parés Arce, four industries — Financial Services, Tourism, Retail and Marketing — are at the forefront of chatbot implementation where they are changing the game by creating new services, providing instant answers and recommendations, and increasing customer loyalty and competitive advantage.

Financial Services. Few solutions spark as much interest within the financial sector as chatbots. Their ability to instantly analyze customer credit-worthiness, offer targeted products and services, answer complex questions, and support regulatory compliance are why banks will save up to $7.3B globally by 2023, as well as 862 million hours (or almost half a million labor years), according to Jupiter Research.

Along with their more complex tasks, financial services chatbots help customers perform a variety of transactional tasks like accessing their account, reporting lost or stolen credit cards, reporting lost cards, processing payments, and renewing policies or challenging a charge on their credit card.

Not only can customers handle many tasks on their own through the help of a chatbot, but their inquiries are resolved more quickly, increasing their satisfaction with the financial institution.

Tourism. To recover what was once a burgeoning tourism industry pre-pandemic, many tourism organizations and the sights and attractions that depend on them are enticing travelers with online experiences that create wanderlust and demand for travel on air, sea and land .

Travelers are already booking tickets and reserving hotel rooms online, but now they can get personalized recommendations and instant answers to make it easier to push the “book now” button. While chatbots are ideal for directing these types of transactions, smart tourism marketers are doing even more. Museums, for example, have extensive multimedia presentations for exhibits that can be accessed with the help of a chatbot. Chatbots can answer quick questions like the price of a ticket, how much time will be spent in the exhibit, and even provide background on the artists. The Museum of Modern Art in Buenos Aires and the Anne Frank Museum in Amsterdam, have already implemented chatbot solutions.

While it’s possible to do these things on a website, it is much easier and quicker to get the information in conversational “bites,” especially when the data is breing accessed on mobile phones which now account for more than half of the interactions of most online offerings.

Retail. Chatbots have become one of the most powerful tools for the retail industry. Chatbot-based retail sales will nearly double annually from now through 2023, reaching $112B, according to Jupiter Research.

Not only can chatbots go “the last mile” with a retail sale by answering outstanding questions in real-time and providing reassurance about the purchasing decision, but they also have the ability to analyze customer sentiment and buying behaviors. By collecting this type of data, retailers learn how better to position their products and services and apply what they’ve learned across other channels like websites, conversational platforms and social networks to improve overall performance.

Marketing and Advertising. Over time, chatbots have evolved as a result of AI advancements and improved natural language capabilities. This makes them versatile and sophisticated tools that can not only handle customer service queries, but also draw customers into the sales funnel by providing the right information at the right time.

For example, chatbots can collect information to create personalized messages, ask questions to gather feedback, and then produce reports that enable marketers to more accurately message about common concerns throughout the customer journey.

In the book “Transform Your Business with AI Chatbots”, the authors offer case studies about retail uses of chatbots and how they can reduce interaction time, reduce the workload in the customer service center, and serve exponentially more people at the same time.

“There is a new day dawning in relationship building between companies and customers. It’s about using technology to augment humans rather than replace them. Smart tools like AI chatbots automate simple and repetitive processes and can identify the moment when they should turn over an interaction to a human who is much better equipped to handle more complex situations,” notes Gustavo Parés, co-author of the book and director of NDS Cognitive Labs, a company specializing in digital transformation and technical talent.

The book “Transform Your Business with AI Chatbots” is available for a limited time on the NDS Cognitive Labs website, and is on sale on Amazon in 3 languages (Spanish, English and French).