The chatbot market size is projected to grow from $2.6 billion in 2019 to $9.4 billion by 2024 at a CAGR of 29.7% during the forecast period. Virtual assistants are emerging as a major business productivity tool indeed. This may result in deep changes in how customer service and sales are being conducted.
With the terms chatbots and virtual assistants being bandied around frequently, there has been a lot of confusion regarding these two different technologies. With an abundance of tools and platforms for chatbot development, one should understand the key differences between AI-based and scripted approaches.
1. Scripted (rule-based) chatbots VS Intelligent virtual assistants (conversational AI)
Virtual Assistants mainly concentrate on Natural Language Understanding (NLU). It’s intended for intent classification, response retrieval and entity extraction during conversation. AI-powered virtual agents are capable of engaging in much more natural and, unlike keyword recognition-based chatbots, remember conversations with specific users to learn and grow over time.
2. Chatbot-driven VS User-driven locus of control
User-driven chatbots, in contrast to chatbot-driven, are set up to be more responsive to variations in user input. The challenge is to identify the users’ intent, both on the level of the individual messages and overall for the interaction. Deep learning plays significant role for the development of user-driven assistants and allows to achieve qualitative results within the needed breadth and volume of content.
3. Third Party VS Custom-Developed Software
The important difference between custom software and off-the-shelf are expenses and possible risks. Custom software is often much more efficient and secure than COTS. You’ll get complete ownership and consistent maintenance for the lifetime of your custom software. Third-party software applications, on the other hand, do not need multiple stages of development, but there will be limited functionalities which may not suit all the requirements of a business.
Conclusion
The road to chatbot success is far from straight-forward. Depending on the use case and business environment, applied technologies for chatbot development are fundamentally different. Understanding of the typology will bring you closer to ultimately make the best choice for your users.
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