Intelligent Virtual Assistant Market Worth $3.07 Billion By 2020

The global intelligent virtual assistant market (IVA) is expected to reach USD 3.07 billion by 2020, according to a new study by San Francisco-based market research and consulting company Grand View Research, Inc. The high emphasis on efficient customer interaction assisted by virtual assistants is estimated to fuel this demand. A rising need to manage huge data, particularly in large enterprises, is anticipated to escalate growth over the next four years.

The global IVA market size was valued at USD 572.2 million in 2014. By transforming customer interactions and mobility solutions, the industry is encountering increasing demand across several application areas, including travel, utilities and telecommunication sector.

There are several benefits offered by IVA technology, such as quick self-service options, enhanced user-experience and improvements in overall productivity. In addition, it improves interactions on smartphones as well as traditional online web-portals with advances in language-based speech recognition and analytics. Personalized engagement that exhibits the capability of identifying a person talking provides avenues for intelligent virtual assistant market growth. Further, as natural language interaction algorithms mature, the effectiveness will increase substantially with the emergence of smart machines and advent of contextually aware personal assistants.

The study found that commercial applications may gain more impetus as the technology matures. Development and vendor initiatives to provide innovation across this sector and growing adoption in consumer applications, for example Google Now, Apple Siri and Microsoft Cortana will likely drive further growth.

Key Findings from the Study Suggest:

• Large enterprises contributed for over 80% of the overall revenue in 2013 and are expected to witness significant growth through 2020. This may be primarily attributed to the focus on high customer satisfaction. Increasing replacement of traditional methods of customer engagement in order to ensure enhanced user engagement and offering real-time, personalized support may elevate demand.
• Small and medium enterprises (SMEs) are expected to exhibit high growth over the forecast period attributing to increasing adoption for better mobility solutions and business communication.

North America intelligent virtual assistant market by end-use, 2012 - 2020 (USD Million)

• North America accounted for over 40% of the global revenue in 2013 owing to early technology adopters resulting in increasing mobility and wireless subscribers in the region. Asia Pacific IVA market is estimated to exhibit rapid growth over the coming years attributing to smartphone proliferation leading to uptake of mobile-based assistants in the region. Overall, trends towards mobility along with smartphone proliferation is estimated to act as a key driver. However, lack of a common language or native language may hinder rapid deployment.
• Key players in the industry include Creative Virtual Ltd., Next IT Corporation, IntelliResponse, Artificial Solutions, eGain Communications, CodeBaby Corp., Anboto Group and Nuance Communications. Industry participants compete on the basis of efficient natural language processing and robust back-end knowledge base capabilities. Companies also make continuous efforts for ensuring cost savings, enhanced user engagement and customer satisfaction. Notable companies also offer features including continued availability, natural language understanding and automatic language detection in order to maintain their leading position in the market.

To sustain demand over the coming years, it will be essential for the IVA industry to implement standardization and increase awareness among end users.