No dominant chatbot players on the horizon

Photo by Roman Pohorecki

The world’s most lucrative AI business – Chatbots/Virtual Digital Assistants — will remain a market served by a robust, diverse ecosystem of vendors.

In a new report, Omdia suggests that contrary to a wide range of vendor assessments and traditional technology market trends, Chatbot/VDA solutions will not be dominated by a small number of big-name vendors.

“There are several reasons for a robust chatbot solutions market,” said Mark Beccue, Principal Analyst, Omdia, “One, there is persistent market demand for solutions which address a broad spectrum of complexity, from pro developer Do It Yourself (DIY) tools and no code SaaS to bespoke end to end solutions.

“Two, it’s likely there will be new market disruptors because of evolving technology, particularly the potential emergence of affordable NLU and training from open-source Large Language Models (LLM).

“Three, the total addressable market is very large and very complex, led by broad market drivers for CX and workflow automation. The market opportunity is nowhere near saturated or commoditized, leaving the door open for a variety of vendors to succeed and prosper.”

Omdia notes other market trends shaping the trajectory for Chatbots/VDAs, including demand for increasingly sophisticated roles for chatbots, the rising importance of BPOs and SIs in the ecosystem and the legitimacy of messaging channels. “Chatbots & Virtual Digital Assistants 2022: Market Trajectory, Forecasts“, examines all these issues and more.

The report will help readers understand the rapidly shifting enterprise Chatbot/VDA market landscape by identifying key drivers and barriers, market trends, the dominant use cases, who the key players are, why they are so key, and what they see in the marketplace. It provides forecasts for Chatbot/VDA spend through 2026 with analysis by verticals and regions.