According to Gartner, by 2026, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) deployments within contact centres will reduce agent labour costs by $80 billion. Worldwide end-user spending on conversational AI solutions within contact centres is forecast to reach $1.99 billion in 2022. 

“Many organisations are challenged by agent staff shortages and the need to curtail labour expenses, which can represent up to 95% of contact centre costs. Conversational AI makes agents more efficient and effective, while also improving the customer experience,” said Daniel O’Connell, VP analyst at Gartner. 

Gartner projects that 1 in 10 agent interactions will be automated by 2026. Conversational AI can automate all or part of a contact centre customer interaction through both voice and digital channels. It is further expected to have transformational benefits to customer service and support organisations within two years 

“While automating a full interaction corresponds to significant cost savings, there is also value in partial containment. Such as – automating the identification of a customer’s name, policy number and reason for calling. Capturing this information using AI could reduce up to a third of the interaction time that would typically be supported by a human agent,” said O’Connell. 

Large-scale conversational AI deployments can take multiple years

While the benefits of conversational AI are compelling, the technology is still maturing. A fragmented vendor landscape and complexity of deployments will result in measured adoption over the next two years. 

 “Implementing conversational AI requires expensive professional resources in areas such as data analytics, knowledge graphs and natural language understanding,” said O’Connell. “Once built, the conversational AI capabilities must be continuously supported, updated and maintained, resulting in additional costs.” 

Complex, large-scale conversational AI deployments can take multiple years. Gartner estimates integration pricing at $1,000 to $1,500 per conversational AI agent, though some organisations cite costs of up to $2,000 per agent.  

Therefore, the early adoption of conversational AI will be primarily led by organisations with 2,500 or more agents with a budget for the requisite technical resources. 

For more resources about conversational AI technologies, check some of our previously published articles:  

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