Chatbots across the retail, banking and healthcare sectors will generate business cost savings of $11 billion annually by 2023, up from $6 billion in 2018, Juniper Research forecast, adding that greater investment in the technology is required to meet consumer expectation.

In a report, the company stated businesses will use chatbots to cut response and interaction times with customers via phone and social channels, saving over 2.5 billion hours by 2023. It also said improvements in artificial intelligence (AI) will create a more “personable user experience”.

The retail sector will gain the most, with Juniper Research predicting that by 2023 over 70 per cent of chatbots will be retail-based: e-commerce transactions via chatbots are estimated to reach $112 billion by 2023.

While messaging apps have been the first platforms on which chatbots became popular, in the future retailers, financial institutions and healthcare providers will integrate the technology into their own apps.