17/03-11   -   Press releases

Market predictions for virtual assistants welcomed by Chatbots.org

The prediction by analysts that within the next few years least 15% of companies in the Fortune 1000 will use virtual assistants has been welcomed by the leading research and business community in human-like virtual assistants, Chatbots.org.

A virtual assistant is an intelligent character on a website, such as a 3d talking avatar representing a company, which answers questions from consumers on the company’s behalf, in natural language.

Analyst Firm Gartner predicts that “by year-end 2013, at least 15 percent of Fortune 1000 companies will use a virtual assistant to serve up Web self-service content to enhance their CRM offerings and service delivery".
Gartner’s prediction matches the future vision by Chatbots.org, the leading virtual human research & business community, which was envisioned in 2004 and founded in 2008. With this vision also confirmed by the leading IT Analyst firm, all signs suggest that the virtual human industry will grow significantly in the years to come.

The recent Gartner report ‘Virtual Assistant Vendor Landscape 2011’ describes 19 vendors in this area who are responsible for 90 % of the industry revenue. Gartner estimates that there are approximately 36 active vendors worldwide.

Chatbots.org has 75 virtual assistant vendors listed, 676 virtual human cases listed and 9,000 members contributing to the topic. Their estimate is that there are 200 virtual assistant vendors worldwide and they expect that this number will triple during the next three years as smaller enterprises start to employ virtual assistants and emerging markets also discover the benefits of virtual agents and avatars.

Moreover, apart from significant growth, the virtual human research community has spotted important trends in the virtual assistant market: connecting virtual agents to social networks such as Facebook, mobile devices making use of voiced 3d human characters, and smart integration of avatars with the leading search engines. At last, seamless integration of virtual agents with customer contact center systems of WCS clients seems to be a hot topic in the industry.

Futurist Erwin Van Lun, CEO and founder of Chatbots.org, predicted back in 2004 that all Fortune 1000 business-2-consumer companies would employ artificial characters by 2015 in order to automate the conversations with consumers in a spoken dialogue. With four more years to go, Van Lun sticks to his prediction and is excited at the thought of seeing how his future vision unfolds.

“Virtual assistants, or brand agents, are the perfect opportunity for brands to listen to consumers. They will be part of human life: they will be everywhere in a natural way, even more normal than television is today. Fortune companies will take the lead, others will follow probably just a few years later and it will introduce a new era, with many thrilling years to come for (virtual) humanity."

Please visit http://www.chatbots.org to find out more about virtual assistants.

About Chatbots.org
Chatbots.org is the leading community on humanlike conversation artificial intelligence, such as virtual assistants, virtual humans, chat bots and avatars. With more than 9,000 members, academics, businesses and individuals, it helps to advance the industry for all involved with virtual humans.

Go to http://www.chatbots.org/register/ and join the community today!