The intelligent virtual agent (IVA) market grew 40 percent in 2019 to at least $300 million, according to a report from Everest Group. The technology is part of a migration of automation technology from the back office to the front office, working in concert with RPA and other tools as part of an “AI ecosystem” that can unite automation across all parts of an organization.
While the Dallas-based consultancy predicts a pullback in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic, it expects the IVA market to rebound and grow at an average rate of 70 percent through 2022.
“IVA is still in the realm of early adoption today, but that is rapidly changing as enterprises realize what a tremendous opportunity they have to leverage this technology,” said Anil Vijayan, vice president of Everest Group. “Today we see a higher level of maturity in intelligent IVA applications, which are being used for a variety of use cases including payment services, account resolutions and employee onboarding, for instance. We’re also beginning to see IVA playing a key role in conversational AI ecosystems, where a collaborative set of tools—including IVA, AI, robotic process automation, learning and listening engines, analytics and more—is used to seamlessly integrate front and back office systems. Here, IVA supports more advanced use cases such as cross-selling and upselling, customer retention, and making personalized recommendations.”