Share of consumers considering chatbots useful in mobile shopping 2022, by country

According to a global 2022 survey, Indian consumers appreciated customer service via chatbots the most, with 36 percent of them finding it useful when shopping on mobile devices. Respondents from the United Arab Emirates and Indonesia followed with 30 percent each, while 27 percent of Mexican shoppers had the same opinion. Scandinavian respondents showed the biggest skepticism regarding the use of this AI tool in mobile shopping, as only eight percent of consumers in both Denmark and Sweden valued chatbots.

Chatbots drive conversational commerce

By simulating natural language, chatbots go under so-called conversational commerce, a shopping channel expected to generate increasing revenue in the upcoming years. All players, from marketplaces to online e-commerce brands, implemented chatbots to automate pre-and post-sale services. In Europe, one in five direct-to-consumer (D2C) e-commerce companies planned to invest in Artificial Intelligence (AI) and chatbots, a survey from 2022 revealed.

Messaging apps in conversational commerce

Even more than chatbots, established messaging apps such as WhatsApp or chat apps connected to social media are the main tools for conversational commerce. In Southeast Asia, 27 percent of online consumers used Facebook for this type of shopping in 2022. Besides product recommendations, messaging apps are used for information on delivery as an alternative to email or SMS. In 2021, WhatsApp remained the third-most preferred channel for delivery notifications in Europe.