The future is bright for Conversational AI, despite its tentative progress: people overhype innovation when it first arrives but underestimate it once progressed over a few years.
Exponential growth is hard for our mere mortal brains to predict even though the riches are great for those who come in early (if I could go back to 2012 just to buy one Bitcoin…). So, I’ll give you a sneak peek to help you on what the future of conversational AI will look like into 2020 and beyond.
Conversational AI does everything for us
Imagine a virtual digital assistant from iRobot (the ones from the beginning, not the end!) or the one from Her that is almost perfectly calibrated to your needs. Amazingly (or creepily), they’ll know you better than you do. They’ll schedule your day, order groceries, pay bills, and respond to messages and emails.
People will go through their days and not be able to live without their VDA much like people today wouldn’t be able to live without their smartphones. For Suits watchers, this will be like having your own Donna every day — without the salary expense!
Conversational AI knows everything about us
(we let it!)
Predictability and knowledge is a crucial part of what will go into successful artificial intelligence. The largest tech companies are all buckling down to get your most valuable currency: data.
This is immensely valuable in the future because Conversational AI will be able to predict what you need before you even tell it — imagine a 10X more sophisticated version of what you see today with Google. Instead of the usual one-click ordering that we’re getting from Amazon, companies will move to zero-click ordering. We won’t even need to think about shopping for printing paper when it runs out, for example, your VDA will know this and a fresh pack of paper will be on your doorstep or chimney if drones can work like Santa.
Conversational AI helps companies succeed
With the Baby Boomers not leaving the office yet (Hi Dad!) and automation creeping in at entry-level jobs, how will companies bridge communication between generations past 2020 successfully?
One way to link communication internally through conversational layers that will encompass the organisation from top to bottom. Although it may not seem like it now, conversational AI probably has an equal or greater ability to affect companies internally rather than consumers externally.
Starting today, chatbots are already becoming internal service desks because they can complete the menial jobs while smoothening communication by keeping it all in one repository (and slashing costs while it’s at it!). Let alone digital employees with a pervasive, accurate and useful repository of knowledge on the company. Now consider each customer with their own personalised account manager who knows their wants, dreams and desires. Plus their concerns and of course, their budget and spending cycles!
Great rewards will come to those that recognise chatbots are at the start of their exponential growth curve. AI will become extremely accurate all of a sudden. Nobody believed in e-commerce and Amazon in the dotcom craze, now they couldn’t be more dangerous to competitors (of every industry). Gartner says the period where huge exponential growth occurs is The Hype Cycle, and chatbots are riding the curve right now.
