We’re working on a brand new editorial newsletter that will cover the rapidly-evolving state of messaging, bots and conversational commerce. We’d love for you to join us for the ride.
We spoke to 17 product leaders from some of the world's biggest tech companies to get their perspective on the state of conversational technology in 2018.
With 9 out of 10 customers declaring they were ready to engage with brands through messaging, businesses made their move this year. As the top messaging apps — led by WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, WeChat and, very soon, Apple Business Chat — shored up their platforms with bot-ready, business-friendly features, industry-leading software companies and brands realized it’s time to get serious about true omnichannel communication. While the messaging landscape remains fragmented and complex, 2017 was the year businesses laid the groundwork for B2C messaging to go mainstream.
1.82 Billion
people worldwide projected to use a chat app in 2017.
Source: eMarketer
WeChat’s “mini-programs” bring mobile apps to conversational interfaces.
Twitter makes DMing customers personal with custom profiles for business agents.
Microsoft takes on Slack with Teams, an internal messaging platform for enterprise businesses.
Hailed as a game changer for chatbots, Messenger 2.0 debuts at Facebook’s annual F8 event.
Japan’s Line sets its sights on the U.S. market, opening a store in New York and adding a voice assistant.
Apple shakes up the B2C messaging space, announcing plans to launch Business Chat next year.
Conversation commerce meets voice assistants as Amazon introduces business notifications on Alexa devices.
YouTube adds in-app direct messaging, bringing conversation to online video.
WhatsApp unveils plans to let enterprise businesses connect with customers via the world’s #1 messaging app.
After 20 years, AOL Instant Messenger, the pioneering messaging app, shuts down.
Facebook’s Customer Chat plugin allows businesses to embed Messenger on their websites, prompting questions about privacy.
Instagram tests Direct, a new standalone messaging app, as the number of businesses on the photo-sharing network surges.
Big Tech embraced chatbots, with Facebook expanding its bot platform, Twitter introducing branded bots within DMs, Google launching chatbot analytics and Bing integrating chatbots into its search results.
2017 also saw some major acquisitions, starting with Cisco scooping up MindMeld, followed by LogMeIn acquiring Nanorep and, perhaps most notably, HubSpot purchasing Motion AI. Add Oracle’s new intelligent bot platform and Drift’s $32 million raise to the mix, and it’s clear chatbots are here to stay.
80%
of businesses say they want chatbots by 2020.
Source: Oracle
“Chatbots are the tip of the spear for businesses getting serious with AI.”
“A lot of people ask me, “Everybody’s building bots, should we build a bot?” If you’re doing it for the sake of doing it, it’s not going to have an impact. People need to build a messaging strategy before investing in the technology.“
Once the new kids on the messaging block, voice assistants entered millions of households in 2017.
Google Home launched globally and Amazon’s Alexa introduced notifications and other monetization tools for businesses. Apple acqui-hired the team from messaging assistant Init.ai to work on Siri, while MessageBird raised a $60 million Series A to build out a voice API. Meanwhile, smaller players like Viber and Skype improved their offerings for Windows 10.
70%
of people have had their voice assistants for less than a year
98%
believe they’ll still be using them in 5 years.
Source: IFTT
“Voice will reduce the effort we expend on data entry, support the disabled, power more predictive applications, and bring new workflows to mobile. These systems are bounded only by their level of intelligence, and by good design’s ability to cover weaknesses in that intelligence.”
“Voice (specifically Google Home) will make a big splash in 2018. This will dramatically change how customers think about business messaging. Will it be voice instead?”
Conversational commerce has been hyped for half a decade now, but businesses are finally putting their money on the table.
Brands ranging from Burberry and L’Oreal, to Betterment and Uber innovated with interactive bots, web messengers and mobile apps, while platforms like Facebook (Customer Chat plugin), WeChat (mini-programs) and Smooch (Conversation Extensions) introduced new tools to help turn the hype into reality.
9.6x
more users make a purchase when they receive push notifications from brands
Source: eMarketer
“It isn’t hard to see how the immediate availability of the Message button embedded in search results in Siri, Maps, Safari, and Spotlight will catch the eyes of Apple’s billion users eventually”
“I think we'll see a number of new bots in 2018 focused on different types of commerce such as clothing, food, office supplies and more. These bots will get smarter and will be able to predict future purchases and make custom recommendations, using AI and machine learning”
As businesses discovered that messaging can be a productivity enhancer rather than a distraction, a number of software companies challenged Slack’s dominance in the internal messaging space.
The team behind OKCupid launched Teams, with security and privacy at its core; Atlassian came out with Stride, a slicker version of HipChat; Microsoft revealed plans to replace Skype for Business with Teams; and Facebook continued to nip at everyone’s heels with Workplace, the enterprise version of the ubiquitous social network.
330 million
people used Messenger to contact a business for the first time this year
Source: Facebook
“Machine learning and artificial intelligence are starting to achieve real utility in the workplace. Questions like, ‘What was our revenue on April 14?’ and ‘Which engineer knows the most about this feature?’ will be answered accurately and instantly with software”
“2018 will prove that there are so many different use cases in the communication industry that there will never be a one-size-fits-it-all solution.”
“2018 will be the year the conversation shifts from novelty to value — we’ll start to see where the actual dollars and cents come from in terms of which channels are converting and which are having a measurable impact on the customer experience.”
“I anticipate we’ll start to see the big messaging companies proactively surface useful businesses at the moment of consumer intent, essentially interpreting casual conversation between friends to find moments where a brand introduction heightens the conversation.”
It was only a matter of time before marketers discovered messaging’s ability to reach the right customers at the right time.
Facebook and Google added messaging capabilities to their social and search advertising platforms, respectively, while both WhatsApp and Messenger explored offering proactive messaging opportunities to businesses, at a premium.
33.9%
of IT businesses are using real-time messaging to start sales conversations
Source: Drift/Clearbit
“2018 will be the year that messaging starts to integrate and become seamlessly interwoven with all of the other communication channels businesses are using to talk to leads and customers.”
“Messaging will enable apps and websites to become interactive faster than ever”
“There are a lot of different uses for chatbots beyond customer service: Q&A, urgent updates, automated follow-ups. I think this is the year a more significant number of marketers start to move beyond the hype and really understand how to build and use these things.”
“Chatbots won’t just be for getting specific jobs done, but for building relationships with customers and engaging them over the long-term.”
“One of the most important things I see happening is the advancement of natural language processing and artificial intelligence across industries.”
We’re working on a brand new editorial newsletter that will cover the rapidly-evolving state of messaging, bots and conversational commerce. It will be packed with original insights, the latest industry research and a little experimentation.
We’d love for you to join us when it launches.
