No matter what you’ve been doing for the past couple of years, you’ve certainly heard about AI and the great progress that has been made with this technology. Artificial intelligence has finally become applicable in “everyday” life and has entered various spheres of our lives, including business.

In just a couple of years, we have witnessed AI transforming from something “futuristic” into an everyday thing and AI technology is now all around us wherever we go. There are numerous ways that businesses were able to use AI to improve their processes, offer better services, and improve their bottom line.

Today, we will be discussing AI in the ecommerce industry as it relates to chatbots and how this application alone is changing many things.

24/7 availability

AI-powered chatbots are programs with built-in AI which is non-stop operational. These tools have no off button and they don’t need it. When it comes to ecommerce, being first and always being present is essential. If you don’t offer assistance to potential customers right away, chances are that they will find another store that will.

Visitors on an ecommerce site usually have inquires about payments, discounts, product information, and other topics. Chatbots with the best AI have the power to answer all these inquiries at all times. They are always present when implemented on a site and instead of losing potential customers or having to hire a lot of customer support agents, a single AI-powered chatbot deployment solves all the issues.

Infinite patience

One of the biggest difficulties for customer support agents on ecommerce sites is that they have to deal with a lot of people daily. A lot of those people like to ask them dozens of questions and thoroughly inspect every detail. Although this is completely within their rights as consumers, it can complicate things for the customer support staff.

Instead of helping other people that might need a single piece of information to make the purchase, they could be stuck with someone who will “only waste their time” and not end up buying anything as it often happens. When customers are communicating with AI, they won’t be testing anyone’s patience, at the same time, chatbots can communicate with dozens of people simultaneously.

No human error

Some of the magic of AI and automation is that they can handle the most repetitive and technical tasks. Even though humans can take care of these tasks as well, people often make mistakes when doing menial tasks. These mistakes don’t happen very often when you look at the statistics, but the tasks are repetitive and done so often that these mistakes have an impact.

When AI gives answers to some question, the answer will always be the same, as it’s drawn directly from the database. On the other hand, AI will never make a mistake in calculating prices. Simply put, AI allows human workers to work on more crucial tasks, where more thinking is involved, and help them get rid of the stress caused by repetitive tasks.

AI is becoming more advanced by the day

For a program to simply recognize questions and give predetermined answers from its database, there’s need for AI. However, the best AI chatbots do so much more. AI technology now allows for a free conversation with chatbots and they have the power to recognize the conversation and intent naturally, rather than giving answers to predetermined questions.

They can also be designed to gather valuable information about customers. For instance, you could add AI to a website where a visitor’s actions and preferences will be monitored through all channels. When this information is transferred to an AI-powered chatbot, it will give a more personalized experience and provide information, answers, and suggestions based on the customer’s preferences. This will lead to increased sales.

Low overhead costs

We mentioned earlier that a single chatbot can handle dozens of customers online if it’s used as an assistant. Additionally, it can be available 24/7 without needing rest, pay or a dental plan, and this is not the best AI chatbot but ANY chatbot. This means that a company could save a lot of money on automating various tasks with AI, which can be performed as effectively as if humans were doing them.

The latest chatbot research shows that if various companies continue to implement chatbot solutions (and they will) the total annual cost savings could surpass 8 billion dollars by 2022. One of the best examples of this is Alexa, Amazon’s chatbot assistant.

This is just how AI helps improve ecommerce stores through chatbots. Just imagine what an impact AI has on ecommerce stores through things like personalization, visual recommendations, targeting, and other aspects and you will see why AI is the future of ecommerce.