Survey: Businesses to continue AI investment with voice assistants, chatbots
The overwhelming majority of businesses are adopting artificial intelligence into their customer communications.
According to a new report based on surveys of businesses and consumers from communications platform Sinch, 97% of businesses plan to use AI in their customer communications this year, with top investment areas for 2025 including AI voice assistants (63%), AI-powered video chats (48%) and AI-driven chatbots (43%).
Sixty percent of financial services respondents and 57% from healthcare say they’ll invest in AI chatbots, which is higher than the average of 46%. Only 29% of retailers said they’d invest in other messaging apps like WhatsApp and Messenger, which is lower than the 42% average across industries surveyed by Sinch.
In the next year, almost half (46%) of all business leaders surveyed said they plan to focus on improving the way communications integrate with their tech stacks. A similar number (43%) will prioritize adopting emerging technologies, with personalization and optimization of existing communications channels (40%) and implementation of more AI and automation into communications (35%) being the two top investment areas. A combined 22% say they’ll either maintain or reduce their investments in communications in 2025.
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When Sinch asked consumers what methods they prefer for promotions from businesses, email came out on top at nearly 77%. More than 30% of consumers want promotional text messages, while other messaging channels such as WhatsApp and Messenger (17%) as well as in-app notifications (15%) are also popular.
Age is a large factor in the communication preferences of consumers. Among those surveyed, Gen Z respondents were most likely to choose text messaging (41%), and Gen Z and millennials were equally as likely to select other messaging channels like WhatsApp or Messenger (28%). Baby boomers (29%) were more likely than Gen X (26%) to choose text messaging, although both groups of older adults were the least likely to want promotional phone calls.
When it comes to communication annoyances, frequent or excessive marketing messages (41%) are what frustrates consumers the most. Around one-third also cited unwanted (35%) and irrelevant messages (33%) as promotional pain points.
As for promotional offers consumers find most interesting, Sinch’s survey revealed that free shipping offers (58%) and price drop promotions (51%) were the most popular, followed by loyalty/rewards points (43%), coupon codes (41%) and buy one, get one free offers (41%).
“It has never been more important, or more achievable, to create experiences that customers love,” said Sophie Cheng, senior VP of product marketing at Sinch. “But to do that, businesses must embrace AI to create seamless, trusted omnichannel strategies that focus on keeping their audiences engaged, informed, safe and happy.”
Sinch’s The State of Customer Communications report is based on surveys of 2,800 consumers and 1,600 business leaders across industries including retail, financial services, healthcare and technology.
