Here’s why chatbots represent a huge opportunity for retailers

Consumer retail spend over chatbots will hit $142 billion by 2024, up from $2.8 billion in 2019, thanks to advances in NLU (Natural Language Understanding) technologies, according to Juniper Research. 

It anticipates that over 50% of retail chatbot interactions will be completed successfully by 2024, without the need for human intervention. As a result, retailers should implement them as part of a wider omnichannel strategy in order to maximise their presence on a number of key channels.

Juniper Research says that 80% of global consumer spend over chatbots will be attributable to discrete chatbots by 2024. These are embedded directly into a retailer’s mobile app, rather than accessed via a browser or messaging application. 

It also forecasts 70% of the global number of chatbots accessed by 2024 will be attributable to the Far East and China. Furthermore, over $80 billion will be splashed out via chatbots in China in 2024, accounting for over 55% of global spend in that year. This will, however, still only be around 4% of total mobile and online spend on digital and physical goods in the region.

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