Dive Brief:

• Chatbots have the potential to save businesses in the healthcare and banking sectors more than $8 billion per year by 2022, up from $20 million in 2017, according to a new report from Juniper Research.

• Chatbots are particularly effective in the call center, where Juniper found they can potentially save businesses an average of more than 4 minutes per call when compared with traditional call centers. 

• Banking bots also hold huge potential. Juniper found the average messaging-based banking bot interaction could save companies $0.70 per transaction in 2022.

Dive Insight:

Juniper’s data examined the banking and healthcare sectors specifically, however, chatbots hold potential for a broad range of other industries as well. By automating certain functions that normally require human labor, chatbots can streamline processes and save businesses time and money.

At first, companies are most likely to apply chatbots to routine customer service experiences. But bots could mean the introduction of new forms of automation that lead to cost savings and innovative ways of engaging with customers and products. The more advanced the interactions become, the more likely customers won't immediately try to skip through automated menus. 

Some service providers are creating development frameworks to make it easier for companies to build their own chatbot interactions. For example, Microsoft's bot framework is now used by more than 130,000 developers, up from 45,000 developers last September, the company announced Wednesday at its annual developer conference in Seattle.

Companies are also integrating bots into their workplace productivity suites. Last month, Facebook introduced bots into the Workplace experience in both Messenger and Group chat, something that other workplace collaboration providers are implementing.