25+ Top Chatbot Statistics For 2024: Usage, Demographics, Trends

The future is here. Thanks to AI-powered chatbot technology, businesses can off-load a huge chunk of their customer support operations to robots, delivering better customer experiences and dramatically cutting their operational costs in the process.

Sounds pretty great, huh? But still, questions remain.

Questions like: 

  • Are chatbots a passing marketing fad, or are they here to stay?
  • Do customers actually prefer interacting with chatbots over real-life people? 
  • Do chatbots help or hinder conversion rates
  • How do you measure chatbot performance?
  • And are they the right fit for every customer and website?

To answer all of these questions and more, we’ve put together 20+ chatbot statistics and trends with all the latest data. Hopefully, the stats below will help you to uncover some interesting insights. 

Editor’s picks

  • Chatbots are the fastest-growing brand communication channel. (Drift)
  • Chatbots are projected to handle 75-90% of healthcare & banking queries by 2022. (CNBC)
  • 68% of consumers like chatbots because they provide quick answers. (Userlike)

Key chatbot statistics and trends

Let’s kick things off by taking a look at the most important chatbot statistics. The stats below tell you more about the growth of the chatbot industry and its adoption in different market sectors worldwide and reveal some of the biggest trends we’re seeing this year.

Chatbots are the fastest-growing brand communication channel 

Chatbots are the fastest-growing brand communication channel 

According to Drift’s 2020 State of Conversational Marketing report, usage of chatbots as a brand communication channel increased by a whopping 92% since 2019. 24.9% of buyers used chatbots to communicate with businesses in 2020, up from 13% the year before. (Source: Drift)

70% of white-collar workers will interact with some form of chatbot by 2022

70% of white-collar workers will interact with some form of chatbot by 2022

In 2019, Gartner predicted that 15% of global interactions would be handled by AI, which includes chatbots. And with the rapid growth in chatbot adoption, they may very well be right.

They predict that by 2022, this will increase to 70% in certain industries that cater towards millennials.

Related Reading: 38 Latest Artificial Intelligence Statistics.

67% of global consumers had an interaction with a chatbot over the last 12 months 

67% of global consumers had an interaction with a chatbot over the last 12 months

This is according to figures from Invespcro and shows just how widespread chatbot use is. (Source: Invesp)

The vast majority (87.2%) of consumers have neutral or positive experiences with chatbots 

The vast majority (87.2%) of consumers have neutral or positive experiences with chatbots

As this statistic shows, consumers in 2021 are much more receptive towards chatbot interactions. Only a small fraction (12.8%) report negative experiences with them. (Source: Drift)

Chatbots are projected to handle 75-90% of healthcare & banking queries by 2022

Chatbots are projected to handle 75-90% of healthcare & banking queries by 2022

Health care and banking are two industries that have long been thought to be well-positioned to benefit from chatbot technology, due to the large volumes of human interactions they have. (Source: CNBC)

There are over 300,000 active chatbots on Facebook

There are over 300,000 active chatbots on Facebook

The convergence of social media messenger platforms and chatbot technology is one of the clearest trends we’ve been seeing over the past few years, and this stat illustrates that. In 2018, Facebook announced that there were over 300,000 bots on the Messenger platform, up from 100,000 the year before. (Source: Venture Beat)

Chatbots handle 68.9% of chats from start to finish

Chatbots are getting more and more advanced every year. According to the latest data from Comm100, chatbots were able to handle 68.9% of chats from start to finish on average in 2019. This represents an increase of 260% in end-to-end resolution compared to 2017 when only 20% of chats could be handled from start to finish without an agent’s help. 

Chatbot usage and engagement statistics

Here are some interesting statistics that tell you how and why consumers interact with chatbots.

The number 1 use case for chatbots is to get a quick answer to a query

The number 1 use case for chatbots is to get a quick answer to a query

Unsurprisingly, the biggest reason consumers use chatbots is to get rapid answers in a pinch. This highlights the main advantage chatbot technology has over real-human interactions: faster response times. This is also important considering that 45.9% of consumers now expect chatbots to deliver an immediate response to their query. (Source: Drift)

41.3% of consumers use conversational marketing tools for purchases

41.3% of consumers use conversational marketing tools for purchases

This is up from 17.1% since 2019 and shows that modern chatbots aren’t just useful for customer service, they can drive conversions and close sales too. (Source: Drift)

33% of consumers would like to use chatbots for reservations

If you’re running a hotel or restaurant, this is worth noting. Around a third of your customers like the idea of being able to make a reservation online without speaking to a staff member. (Source: Drift)

Chatbots generate 35-40% response rates

And that’s just at the low end of the spectrum. Better bot experiences with more engaged audiences can generate response rates as high as 80-90%. These are useful benchmarks to measure your own metrics up against. (Source: Matthew Barby)

The average satisfaction rate of bot-only chats is 87.58%

This is almost 2 percentage points higher than the satisfaction rate for chats that get passed over to human agents, for obvious reasons, and is a useful benchmark to measure your performance up against. (Source: Comm100)

Chatbot benefits statistics

The statistics below highlight the main benefits chatbots have over customer service agents, according to consumers.

68% of consumers like chatbots because they provide quick answers

68% of consumers like chatbots because they provide quick answers

Respondents in a survey by Userlike highlighted the fact that the chatbot answered quickly as the most positive aspect of their interactions. Other things that respondents appreciated were the fact that the bot could forward them to a real person and help them outside of usual operating hours.

The #1 benefit of chatbots is 24/7 support, according to consumers

The ability of chatbots to answer queries 24 hours a day was also picked up as the main benefit in Drift’s state of marketing report. Fortunately, unlike humans, robots don’t need to sleep. (Source: Drift)

Ecommerce chatbot statistics

Thinking about adding a chatbot to your ecommerce store? Here are some statistics you should know.

Online retail has the greatest customer-acceptance of chatbots

Online retail has the greatest customer-acceptance of chatbots

34% of online retail store customers accept AI chatbots, more so than in any other industry.

For comparison, acceptance of AI chatbots by banking customers stands at just 20%, and in the insurance industry, that figure is 15%. This is good news for ecommerce stores. (Source: Invesp)

Chatbot ecommerce transactions are projected to amount to $112 billion by 2023

Chatbots can help to drive retail sales by leveraging ‘push’ factors like upselling, marketing, and cart recovery notifications. As a result, Juniper Research predicts ecommerce transactions via chatbots will reach $112 billion by 2023.

Using abandoned cart chatbots alongside Messenger boosts ecommerce revenue by 7-25%

Per Chatbots Magazine. Sending a customer who abandoned their cart a private message via messenger or chatbot a few hours later asking them to complete their purchase can help you to capitalize on sales you might otherwise lose out on.

Chatbot marketing & business statistics

Here are some important marketing and business-related chatbot statistics worth knowing.

55% of businesses that use chatbots generate more high-quality leads 

Chatbots are an essential tool in your lead generation arsenal. They can collect website visitor contact information 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. (Source: Drift)

Chatbots can save businesses as much as 30% on customer support costs

Chatbots can handle a huge chunk of your customer support operations by answering simple queries for you. This means you can afford to hire less customer support/call center staff. (Source: IBM)

Chatbots are predicted to save businesses $8billion by 2022

If you want to break those cost-savings down, it works out as $0.70 per customer interaction, according to early projections by Juniper Research.

Chatbots are predicted to save businesses 2.5 billion hours by 2023

Chatbots don’t just save money, they save time. (Source: Juniper Research)

Chatbot limitations / challenges

Of course, it’s not all sunshine and rainbows. Here are some statistics that highlight the biggest challenges and limitations facing the chatbot industry. 

Consumers’ biggest chatbot concerns are ‘a lack of understanding’ and ‘inability to solve complex issues’

This shouldn’t come as much of a surprise. While chatbot AI technology has come a long way, it’s still a long way away from having the problem-solving capabilities of real humans. The best way to use chatbots is to provide preprogrammed answers to simple, routine queries, and have them pass anything more complicated onto your customer service and sales reps. (Source: NewVoiceMedia)

46% of consumers think chatbots are being used to stop them from reaching a live agent

Some consumers are still skeptical of brands’ motives behind using chatbots. Some people still see chatbots as a cost-saving measure for brands that comes at the customers’ expense. (Source: NewVoiceMedia)

60% of consumers think humans are able to understand their needs better than chatbots

And they’re probably right – for now. As the AI technology that powers chatbots continue to evolve, so too will their ability to understand customer needs. (Source: Business Insider)

60% of consumers would prefer to wait for an agent than use a chatbot

60% of consumers would prefer to wait for an agent than use a chatbot

This is based on responses to a survey from Userlike. However, it’s worth noting that the majority of the same respondents said they’d be happy to talk to a chatbot first if it could transfer them to an agent. (Userlike)

Wrapping it up

That concludes our roundup of the top chatbot statistics, facts, and trends you need to know.

Now, if you’re ready to improve your marketing across other channels, we’ve got more content to help you. Here are a few articles I’d recommend checking out: