How much are tech buyers paying for AI-powered chatbots?

Tech buyers are paying anywhere from $25K to $1.5M per year to automate and personalize customer service.

Using chatbots to automate the early stages of customer service to save time and money is not new. But now with the capabilities of AI, chatbots can serve as more than just interactive FAQ lists.

AI-powered chatbots provide additional value by tailoring responses to consumer sentiment, analyzing conversations for business insights, and communicating with customers in a variety of languages.

Major companies are actively evaluating and investing in AI-powered chatbots. For example:

Cisco has invested in Uniphore, and it has also partnered with Uniphore to provide conversational automation solutions to its own customers.
Salesforce, Bloomberg, and State Farm have invested in Replicant via venture arms.
Instacart and Marriott International are customers of Forethought.

To understand how buyers make AI-powered chatbot purchasing decisions, we mined CB Insights software buyer transcripts and vendor-submitted Analyst Briefing surveys.

Here are 4 key takeaways from this analysis:

Team effort: Some large enterprises are using a blend of AI-powered chatbots to cater to different audiences and languages.
Constant reevaluation: While most buyers are happy with their vendor selection and intend to renew, many mention that they will continually reevaluate vendors as conversational AI technology continues to improve.
Variable pricing: Many AI-powered chatbot providers price services based on usage, meaning that pricing can be tailored to the current size of a buyer’s business.
High ROI: Buyers are finding that AI-powered chatbots have helped reduce customer service costs, improve customer satisfaction, and free up their employees to work on higher-value tasks.

Below, we’ll dive deeper to highlight several key AI-powered chatbot vendors, how much their buyers are paying, and vendor-specific buyer perspectives.