Chatbots and voice assistants are gaining traction in the workplace

chatbot and voice assistant implemenation plans

This story was delivered to BI Intelligence Apps and Platforms Briefing subscribers hours before appearing on Business Insider. To be the first to know, please click here.

AI-powered chatbots and voice assistants are still nascent technologies, but they're starting to gain traction in the workplace, according to a report from Spiceworks.

The report, which included responses from 500 IT pros in organizations across North America and Europe, found that on average over 29% of organizations have either implemented one or more AI-powered chatbots or voice assistants for work-related tasks, or plan to do so in the year ahead.

Adoption of the tech is skewed toward large organizations, with 40% of large businesses expecting to implement at least one AI-powered chatbot or voice assistant on corporate devices within the next 12 months, compared with 25% of mid-sized companies and 27% of small businesses.

There are two major trends related to chatbot and voice assistant uptake in the enterprise:

Chatbots and voice assistants are used mainly by IT departments and for simple tasks like voice dictation. Fifty-three percent of organizations using AI-powered chatbots or voice assistants implement them within their IT department, well above the share using them in administrative management, customer service support, marketing, and sales. Among companies currently using the tech, 46% tap them for voice-to-text dictation, while 26% use them for team collaboration and 24% use them for employee calendar management.
Consumer-facing voice assistants like Amazon's Alexa and Google Assistant are losing the workplace to Cortana. Of the businesses that have implemented a chatbot or voice assistant in the workplace, 49% are using Microsoft’s Cortana and 47% are using Apple’s Siri. Implementation of Google Assistant and Amazon’s Alexa trails further behind, with 23% of businesses using Google Assistant and just 13% using Alexa.

Chatbots and voice assistants have the potential to become an indispensable part of the workplace, but the technology will need to advance, and new and compelling use cases will need to come to light. Fifty-nine percent of respondents said the tech misunderstands requests and the nuances of human dialogue, while 30% find that the technology executes inaccurate commands. Meanwhile, among businesses that have yet to tap into AI-powered chatbots and voice assistants, 50% say it’s because of the lack of use cases.

Subscribe to an All-Access membership to Business Insider Intelligence and gain immediate access to:

	Content like this delivered straight to your inbox daily
	Access to 250+ expertly researched reports plus all future reports
	Forecasts of new and emerging technologies in your industry
	And more!