By 2015, 50 percent of online customer self-service search activities will be via a virtual assistant for at least 1,500 large enterprises. More than 1,500 organizations worldwide are in various stages of production with virtual assistants (VAs). The results range from profound cost savings (5 percent reduction in service costs) and increased customer loyalty to simply the entertainment of having a robotic presence on a website. But the number of organizations adding this capability is growing by 20 percent per year, especially in travel, consumer goods, telecommunications and banking. A challenge is that computer-generated characters have limited ability to maintain an interesting dialogue with users; they need a well-structured and extensive knowledge management engine to become efficient, self-service productivity tools. VAs will lead to further downsizing of customer service centers.
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