As I discussed at REACH 2020 along with a few of my fellow G2 research analysts, conversational artificial intelligence (AI) has transformed operational workflows across industries like healthcare and financial services. Conversational AI has also made its way into new departments within businesses, such as human resources. Speaking to one's software allows business professionals to easily access data, as well as quickly input data into backend systems in a conversational, natural manner.

Within the broader space of conversational intelligence software, the breadth of opportunities to implement conversational AI are growing and are likely to grow further in 2021. It comes to how they craft their own conversational solutions, whether they be internally or externally facing-a business can choose to build, buy, or do something in between.

When building conversational AI, developing a robust data science practice and in-house development team can take more time and energy but results in higher customization. Thus, companies can build a conversational agent from scratch using tools such as natural language understanding software. The customization with this type of solution cannot be understated, for example, they can build custom models, which recognize and react to industry-specific terms.

Another option, bot platforms, package functionality together as well as offer similar levels of customization based on the strategy the business wants to enhance, be it marketing or sales. Off-the-shelf bot platforms offer varying levels of customizability and intelligence.

Finally, businesses that are looking to get a project off the ground quickly can leverage chatbots software, which provides users with off-the-shelf solutions that can conduct fairly scripted conversations with interlocutors. Although this solution can be implemented quickly, a tradeoff must be made as customization will be severely limited, as well as the number of intents and use cases that the bot can handle.