AI Stats News: Chatbots Increase Sales By 67% But 87% Of Consumers Prefer Humans

Only 22% of CRM users say AI meaningfully helps them a lot at work and only 12% actually use a specific AI-based tool; 11% say AI in their CRM allows them to focus on high-value customers and 36% CRM think AI is a strong value for the money spent on it [Dynata and Freshworks survey of 501 U.S. CRM users] Stanford's Michael Webb has developed a new methodology to estimate the impact of AI on jobs: Matching patent applications with job descriptions, he found that "AI exposure is highest for high-skilled occupations, suggesting that AI will affect very different people than software and robots," concluding that "high-wage occupations are relatively more exposed to AI than low-wage occupations" [The Impact of Artificial Intelligence on the Labor Market] More than 60% of Americans believe the government and companies collect data about them daily; more than 80% feel they have little control over the data collected about them by the government and companies and believe the risks of this data collection outweigh the benefits; 59% say they have little or no understanding regarding what is done with the data collected about them by companies and 78% have similar lack of understanding about the government's data collection; 70% say their personal data is less secure than 5 years ago [Pew Research Center] Over 74% of consumers are still confused about how their data is handled; over 49% still don't trust the privacy policies that businesses have shared; 32% of consumers are "Privacy Actives"--they care about privacy, are willing to act to protect it, and have already acted by switching companies or providers based on their data-sharing practices. European startups pursuing some kind of AI-related product or service are on track to raise $4.9 billion in 2019, up from $3.2 billion in 2018. Funding this year for robotics will reach $1.4 billion and for deep learning $320 million [Venturebeat.com] The market for virtual digital assistants (VDAs) will grow from $1.3 billion in 2018 to more than $8.9 billion in 2025 [Tractica]