As technology becomes imperative to the success of businesses, every company wants to go ahead with innovation. Regardless of their size and domain, businesses want to be early adopters of everything new on the digital landscape. Artificial intelligence is one of the key technologies that are disrupting the corporate environment. More specifically, companies are moving over to virtual assistants for enhancing efficiencies and improving customer experiences.
The technology has immense potential, and missing out on it means that you will lose the race even before you start. Incredibly, the number of organizations adopting AI grew by 270 percent in just four years, and it is just the beginning. Since these businesses are from diverse domains, the trend is big in almost every industry. However, the virtual assistant boom is a tad more in some domains as compared to the others.
Let us list the industries exploring the unlimited potential of AI-powered virtual assistants right now.
E-Commerce
E-commerce is all about winning consumer trust with superlative customer experiences rather than products. Buyers in the domain do not buy products; rather, they buy the overall experience because it entices them to pick products without seeing or touching them. It is vital for the seller to go the extra mile with availability, which is hard to manage only with traditional sales and support tools like phone calls and emails. Moreover, businesses cannot rely entirely on human representatives because they may not be available around the clock. Even if there is a 24/7 team, they may compromise customer experience or commit errors during interactions.
Artificial Intelligence
AI has come ahead as a game-changer in the industry, completely automating the sales and support operations. Smart bots serve as a reliable first point of contact as they can understand human language, address and redirect queries to the right department and even offer product recommendations according to their browsing preferences and shopping behavior. Further, they can help them shorten sales cycles, save time, boost conversion, and make more money. Being language agnostic, these virtual assistants can handle an international audience.
Healthcare
AI-based chatbots are transforming the healthcare segment as well. Medical professionals have a tough job, and things are even more challenging in the pandemic era. Whether it is doctors, nurses, or caregivers, everyone needs to give attention to detail and have to be available to give patients the care and services they need. Moreover, administrative work also takes up a significant part of the average physicians’ working hours. They end up wasting time and energy on trivial responsibilities while cutting down overall career satisfaction.
Virtual assistants can leverage Artificial Intelligence to curb these responsibilities so that practitioners can focus on their real tasks. From synergizing front office healthcare to getting patient information and helping doctors and caregivers to elevate the level of patient care, there is much that bots can facilitate. They can even integrate information sources and work as a single system of records for healthcare organizations. Alerts are another intrinsic function of virtual medical assistants.
Construction
Another segment that is witnessing the AI-boom right now is construction. According to research data, Artificial Intelligence in the construction market is all set to reach USD 4.51 billion mark by 2026. A virtual construction assistant has great potential when it comes to bringing simplicity to large and complex projects. These software programs are capable of fetching project reports, delivering key metrics to everyone on board, and sharing critical issues with the stakeholders. They also enable quick access to reliable and accurate information and stats.
An AI-driven construction virtual assistant is now in-demand, and most businesses look for construction management software integrated with one. It can reduce the workload of the project managers so that they can focus on more critical issues that require their attention. Apart from saving time and simplifying processes, it can even drive cost savings and even enhance on-site safety for projects.
Human Resource
The HR industry is ridden with challenges, with repetitive and cumbersome processes being one of them. While hiring and onboarding are the most important tasks, multiple other elements influence the bottom line of HR specialists. These include aspects such as audits, conflict resolution, legal compliance systems, policy creation, training, and leadership development. They need to be proactive and future-forward to handle all these aspects of operations effectively.
However, things go in the wrong direction as a significant part of HR time is spent on responding to internal queries and handling talent management. It takes away the attention and time they could use for critical tasks like strategizing, planning, recruiting, and developing talent. Using a custom-made HR virtual assistant is a good approach as they can handle significant tasks such as interacting with new recruits and current employees, answering their questions, and engaging with them through interactive feedback loops.
Travel
Travel is a growing industry, but the biggest challenge that it faces is delivering excellent customer support to customers across diverse time zones. It is hard to ensure availability when people are expecting your representatives to be at the beck and call according to local business hours. While non-availability can lower customer experience, an around-the-clock team of human support executives spells a massive investment for a business. Embracing Artificial Intelligence is the best approach for businesses that want to resolve this concern.
These smart virtual assistants are available at all times, regardless of the time zones and locations of the customers. Further, they are capable of understanding their languages and giving them satisfactory resolutions to their issues without requiring language training, as is likely to happen with human agents. Bots never take days off, and they never compromise on customer service, so they fuel up travel businesses better than real staff.
While these industries are the key takers of Artificial Intelligence technology, it is fast making inroads in all other domains as well.
Summary
Artificial Intelligence is a futuristic technology that has a huge potential for businesses. Investing in an AI-powered virtual assistant is a norm in many industries as these smart applications can automate processes, save time and money, and propel business growth. Here are the industries that are embracing them in a big way.
