Conversational AI To Drive 16% Growth In Worldwide Contact Centre Market In 2023: Report
The global contact centre market is poised for substantial growth in 2023, with a projected increase of 16.2 per cent from the previous year, according to an industry report.
Worldwide end-user spending on contact centres and conversational AI and virtual assistants is expected to reach a staggering USD 18.6 billion this year.
This is attributed to the expected growth in adoption of Contact Center as a Service (CCaaS) and the burgeoning Conversational AI and Virtual Assistant segments. Nevertheless, near-term investment growth rates for these technologies may be somewhat affected by business volatility, leading to longer decision cycles.
The Gartner report explained that long-term advancements in generative AI and conversational AI maturity will drive the replacement of contact centre platforms. Customer Experience (CX) leaders are increasingly focused on enhancing customer service operations and overall customer experience simultaneously.
The Conversational AI and Virtual Assistant market is positioned as the primary driver behind the contact centre's robust growth, with an estimated 24 per cent surge expected in 2024. Organisations are keen to incorporate conversational AI into their long-term strategies to reduce reliance on live agents.
While AI has increasingly permeated customer service interactions, most interactions are still augmented with CC AI instead of being fully handled by virtual agents. Industry projections suggest that approximately 3 per cent of interactions will be solely managed by CC AI in 2023, but this figure is set to rise significantly to 14 per cent by 2027.
In 2023, the report foresaw potential budget restrictions arising from general economic and geopolitical uncertainty, which may result in a slowdown of premises-based contact centre replacements and upgrade projects. Nevertheless, decision-makers are expected to prioritise customer-facing projects as integral components of revenue retention and generation strategies.
Despite these challenges, CCaaS investment growth is likely to gather momentum as organisations seek to modernise their customer service operations with cloud-based contact center capabilities. This drive toward modernisation extends to larger contact centers, which have been comparatively slower in adopting CCaaS in the past.
As part of these modernisation efforts, CCaaS solutions will embrace a diverse range of communications channels and incorporate advanced features such as dashboards, analytics, routing, workforce optimisation (WFO), knowledge and insight, and conversational AI capabilities.
