Does anyone have an estimation on the size of the virtual agent market? Virtuoz claims that 10% of Fortune 1000 companies have already utilized chatbots. This definitely sets the bar high, but how big of a market are we talking about? Erwin, any ideas?

very good question ekim. Actually, I can imagine that you think that, chatbots.org would have, should have, the answer is to to this question. We are working on a report like this indeed. However, this will take a while. we might have this information available, mid or probably end 2010.

We currently only our directory tab and our company profile list:
http://www.chatbots.org/companies/

furthermore, I’ve estimated that the long-term potential of this industry is as large as the advertising industry today, which is US$600 billion( no typo). This presentation might help:
http://www.erwinvanlun.com/images/pres/Erwin_Van_Lun_-_Chatbots_as_a_Business.pdf

Hope this helps

I agree with Erwin ... Good question ekim

Here is Casey, a Microsoft ASP.NET virtual agent:

http://support.microsoft.com/contactus/conversation.aspx?query=Hello.

Ekim Nazim Kaya - Apr 27, 2010:

Does anyone have an estimation on the size of the virtual agent market? Virtuoz claims that 10% of Fortune 1000 companies have already utilized chatbots. This definitely sets the bar high, but how big of a market are we talking about? Erwin, any ideas?

As I had mentioned to you before Ekim, the size of the market quoted to me by an industry analyst was $180M for 2010.  The trick with this figure is how he defines a virtual agent.  As the English saying goes, the devil is in the details.

Thank you Mark, thank you Erwin