Pulses deliver forward-looking insights into the evolution and impact of science, technology, and trends on global transformation. By engaging with our Pulses, you will gain a deeper understanding of each topic's significance, the key innovators driving change, and the future direction we anticipate. These insights are designed to stimulate discussions within your teams, challenging you to consider your preparedness for impacts on new product development, innovation, vision, strategy, R&D, and beyond.

In a rapidly evolving landscape of technology advances and shifting market demands, Conversational AI (CAI) drives business transformation. With a focus on internal innovation as a precursor to external success, this report highlights how CAI enhances employee productivity, streamlines operations, drives customer engagement, and automates intricate workflows. In this report, we examine CAI’s role in achieving internal efficiency and external excellence and present a comprehensive roadmap for its adoption and implementation. The report highlights CAI’s transformative impact by prioritizing its deployment in internal departments, such as HR and IT. Building on this foundation, organizations can scale CAI across the enterprise and extend its application to external-facing processes, highlighting its critical role in enabling end-to-end business transformation. The report highlights CAI’s vital role in shaping business strategies, offering actionable insights for its adoption, and showing its ability to deliver personalized interactions and improve operational efficiency. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we: Analyze CAI’s strategic importance in shaping business strategies Offer a comprehensive enterprise roadmap for effective CAI adoption Examine how CAI drives holistic business transformation across organizational processes Membership(s) Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) Sourcing and Vendor Management

Conversational AI encompasses advanced technologies, such as intelligent virtual agents, chatbots, voice assistants, and agent assist tools, designed to facilitate human-like interactions between businesses and customers. These solutions leverage natural language processing and machine learning to automate communication across channels such as websites, messaging apps, and voice interfaces, enabling personalized, real-time responses. Conversational AI streamlines both customer-facing and internal processes, driving operational efficiency, improving user experiences, and offering 24/7 support across industries such as e-commerce, banking, and healthcare. Customized Large Language Models (LLMs) are boosting personalization and contextual understanding, while new ecosystems combining conversational AI and generative AI are driving more intelligent and adaptive customer interactions. This report comprehensively outlines the conversational AI market, including top providers, technology ecosystems, adoption drivers, and buyer insights. It also explores how generative AI can enhance conversational AI capabilities, revolutionizing customer engagement and offering businesses a competitive edge in a rapidly evolving digital landscape. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we provide: An overview of conversational AI solutions’ provider landscape and partnership ecosystem Conversational AI solutions’ market size and adoption trends across buyer geography, size, industry, and business function Insights into the impact of generative AI and LLMs on conversational AI solutions Buyer insights, adoption drivers, future outlook, and barriers to conversational AI adoption Membership(s) Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services, including Contact Center Outsourcing Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) Sourcing and Vendor Management

IT management, once viewed as a troubleshooting function, has transitioned into a holistic entity that improves employee experience and streamlines business operations. Conversational AI is leading this transformation, translating AI capabilities into measurable business benefits such as elevating user experience, productivity, and cost efficiency. Moreover, generative AI can significantly boost conversational AI platforms' performance by enhancing their conversational intelligence and cognitive capabilities, improving data security and quality, assessing multimodal sentiments, analyzing agent behavior, enhancing virtual agent training, and providing other valuable functionalities. Consequently, organizations are increasingly adopting conversational AI platforms, especially to support and expand IT management and uncover growth opportunities. This compendium provides comprehensive and fact-based snapshots of 12 conversational AI for IT management technology providers and analyzes their capabilities. It enables providers to benchmark their capabilities against their peers, while buyers can assess the providers based on their desired set of capabilities. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we feature 12 conversational AI for IT management provider profiles and include their: Company and product overview Recent investments and announcements Market adoption and key partnerships Product features and capabilities Membership(s) Digital Workplace Sourcing and Vendor Management

Conversational AI has revolutionized interactions between businesses, individuals, and technologies, enhancing customer experiences, driving customer acquisition, and establishing market differentiation. In recent years, especially with the advent of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), conversational AI providers are addressing the increasing demand for more sophisticated chatbot capabilities by introducing new features and enhancing existing offerings to deliver comprehensive and accessible solutions for diverse use cases. Providers are also ensuring enterprise data protection, transparency, and explainability to maximize conversational AI solutions’ benefits. This compendium provides comprehensive and fact-based snapshots of 26 conversational AI technology providers and offers insightful analysis of their capabilities. The compendium enables providers to benchmark their capabilities against their peers, while buyers can assess the providers based on their desired set of capabilities. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we feature 26 conversational AI provider profiles and include: Company overview Product Overview Recent investments and announcements Market adoption and partnership overview FTEs by function Product features, functionalities, and key enhancements Capabilities across PEAK Matrix® dimensions Key partnerships Memberships Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services, including Contact Center Outsourcing Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) Sourcing and Vendor Management

Conversational AI has revolutionized interactions between businesses, individuals, and technologies, enhancing customer experiences, driving customer acquisition, and establishing market differentiation. In recent years, especially with the advent of generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs), conversational AI providers are addressing the increasing demand for more sophisticated chatbot capabilities by introducing new features and enhancing existing offerings to deliver comprehensive and accessible solutions for diverse use cases. Providers are also ensuring enterprise data protection, transparency, and explainability to maximize conversational AI solutions’ benefits. In this report, we assess 25 conversational AI technology providers featured on the Conversational AI Products PEAK Matrix® and categorize them as Leaders, Major Contenders, and Aspirants based on their capabilities and market offerings. We also identify Star Performers, which have made significant progress from the previous year. The research will help buyers select right-fit technology providers and enable providers to benchmark themselves against the competition. Scope All industries and geographies This assessment is based on Everest Group’s annual RFI process through December 2023, interactions with leading conversational AI technology providers, client reference checks, and ongoing analysis of the conversational AI market Contents This report covers: Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix® evaluation assessing 25 conversational AI technology providers The conversational AI technology provider market’s competitive landscape Remarks on the featured providers’ key strengths and limitations Membership(s) Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services, including Contact Center Outsourcing Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) Sourcing and Vendor Management

IT management, once viewed as a troubleshooting function, has transitioned into a holistic entity that improves employee experience and streamlines business operations. Leading this transformation is conversational AI, which translates AI capabilities into measurable business benefits such as elevating user experience, productivity, and cost efficiency. The conversational AI landscape is continuously innovating. However, generative AI and large language models, which can generate human-like text and enable more natural and context-aware conversations, have marked a tectonic shift in the domain. Generative AI can significantly boost conversational AI platforms' performance by enhancing their conversational intelligence and cognitive capabilities, improving data security and quality, assessing multi-modal sentiments, analyzing agent behavior, enhancing virtual agent training, and providing other valuable functionalities. Consequently, organizations are increasingly adopting conversational AI platforms, especially to support IT management, uncover growth opportunities, and expand in IT management. Scope All industries and geographies The assessment is based on Everest Group’s annual RFI process for calendar year 2023, interactions with leading conversational AI technology providers, client reference checks, and ongoing analysis of the conversational AI for IT management market Contents In this report, we assess 12 conversational AI for IT management technology providers featured on the Conversational AI for IT Management Products PEAK Matrix® and categorize them as Leaders, Major Contenders, and Aspirants based on their capabilities and market offerings. The report will enable enterprises to select right-fit providers for their requirements and allow technology providers to benchmark themselves against the competition. Membership(s) Digital Workplace Sourcing and Vendor Management

Over the past year, gen AI has garnered significant attention due to innovations such as ChatGPT. Powered by Large Language Models (LLMs), gen AI enables human-like conversations. It has broad applications, particularly within Intelligent Automation (IA), where it enhances existing solutions such as Intelligent Document Processing (IDP) and Conversational AI (CAI). CAI, which uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) for text, voice, and video interactions, is widely adopted across industries to improve customer interactions and operational efficiency. As CAI adoption grows, providers are incorporating low-code/no-code functionalities to democratize chatbot development among enterprises. Concurrently, they are leveraging gen AI to enhance intent recognition, entity extraction, sentiment analysis, and analytics, delivering better Customer Experience (CX) and differentiating their offerings. CAI significantly enhances gen AI models’ effectiveness by improving conversational contexts and offering more accurate responses. By integrating these AI models, providers can create synergistic solutions that elevate CX. Scope All industries and geographies Functions: Customer Experience Management (CXM), CAI, gen AI, and IA Contents In this report, we examine: AI’s role in shaping today’s world CAI’s status Gen AI’s role in enhancing CAI solutions Gen AI’s implications for enterprises and CAI’s role in mitigating them AI use cases Key strategies for enterprises to adopt gen AI Membership(s) Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services, including Contact Center Outsourcing Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) CX Excellence CXM Technology  

Conversational AI is a network of advanced technologies and solutions, such as Intelligent Virtual Agents (IVAs) and agent assist, that communicate with each other to share information across systems, serving as a key enabler of front- and back-office automation. Businesses worldwide are recognizing the significance of conversational AI solutions to serve customers across different industries through diverse digital channels, addressing customer needs, and supporting internal processes such as HR support, IT helpdesk, sales, finance and accounting, and marketing. This report highlights the escalating demand for self-service solutions such as conversational AI, reaching an all-time high and expected to gather greater momentum as enterprises increasingly leverage these solutions for superior customer experience, customer acquisition, and market differentiation. Additionally, the report explores recent advances in generative AI, holding the potential to significantly enhance the capabilities of conversational AI solutions, thereby making them more effective for a multitude of use cases and increasing customer satisfaction. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we examine: An overview of conversational AI solutions The impact of generative AI and LLMs on conversational AI solutions Market size and adoption trends of conversational AI solutions across buyer geography, size, industry, and business function Buyer insights, adoption drivers, and barriers to adoption of conversational AI Conversational AI provider landscape and partnership ecosystem Membership(s) Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services, including Contact Center Outsourcing Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) Sourcing and Vendor Management

Generative AI and Large Language Models (LLMs) have revolutionized Conversational AI (CAI), moving beyond traditional chatbots to AI-powered chats capable of handling complex customer queries and tasks while emulating human-like language. These advanced AI systems can generate more natural and context-aware conversations, resulting in elevated customer experiences, streamlined operational processes, and heightened overall accessibility. Furthermore, generative AI can significantly boost the performance of various tools with the capacity to enhance transcriptions, improve data quality, assess multi-modal sentiments, analyze agent behaviors, and offer other valuable functionalities. As businesses increasingly harness generative AI and LLMs’ potential, they unlock unprecedented opportunities for innovation, efficiency, and seamless integration of advanced functionalities into their operational frameworks. This compendium provides comprehensive and fact-based snapshots of 25 CAI technology providers. Each profile specifies the provider’s position on Everest Group’s PEAK Matrix® and offers an insightful analysis of its capabilities. The compendium enables providers to benchmark their capabilities against their peers, while buyers can assess the providers based on their desired set of capabilities. Scope All industries and geographies Contents In this report, we feature 25 CAI solutions provider profiles and include: Company overview Market adoption and capability overview Recent investments and announcements Client portfolio mix Product overview FTEs by function Product features, functionalities, and key enhancements Capabilities across PEAK Matrix® dimensions Key strengths and limitations Membership(s) Customer Experience Management (CXM) Services, including Contact Center Outsourcing Service Optimization Technologies (SOT) Sourcing and Vendor Management