If you find chat bots unhelpful or holding for customer service reps a drag, don't feel bad. It's a natural human reaction -- the kind of human reaction better handled by automated voice assistants powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that are smart, fast and far more humanlike now. Companies are automating everything imaginable for cost savings, efficiency and accuracy in the pandemic era. However, the installed base of not-too-bright chat bots and the inconsistent voice systems they commonly use are quickly becoming outmoded, and customer sentiment is taking a bruising in the process. This state of affairs is fast-tracking consumer experience (CX) to the next level of automated interaction: deploying voice systems that learn and improve, rapidly tapping vast datasets, and creating chat bots and automated voice helpers that are not just better -- they're even empathetic.

In 2016, there were more than 100 conversational AI companies in India. But today, only a handful of companies are there. Everyone believes that automating a few queries for customers on an app is conversational AI. However, the industry is now redefining a CRM from being just a store of customer data to manage interaction, to making software the central point to handling every detail about the customer. Speaking about conversational AI at YourStory's flagship event TechSparks 2020, Raghavendra Kumar Ravinutala, Co-founder of Yellow Messenger, said: According to MarketsandMarkets, the global conversational AI market size is expected to grow from $4.8 billion in 2020 to $13.9 billion by 2025 at a Compound Annual Growth Rate (CAGR) of 21.9 percent during the forecast period.

Chat apps are very popular and arguably, most people would prefer engaging in a chat conversation rather than make a phone call. Going by recent buzz, it's apparent that tech giants are planning to bring chat conversations to advertisers and marketers. But there are many startups out there already using chat conversations to simplify user queries. Yellow Messenger is one such Bangalore-based startup. Instead of a team of people answering your queries however, it has put in place an Artificial Intelligence-powered interface that converses with users and responds to their queries related to shopping, real estate, recharge, etc.