Bright future for chatbots in education, health and HR

Dublin event to highlight the many opportunities from using chatbot technology

Chatbots may one day be used to mark student exams, deliver learning programmes at work and for booking GP appointments.

That is according to Conor Kostick of SnatchBot, who is to tell attendees at an event in Dublin on Thursday about the many opportunities for early adopters in areas such as education, human resources and health.

Mr Kostick will say that while chatbots are primarily used in the retail and customer service sectors, there are numerous applications for the technology.

"The benefits for the education sector are endless. Chatbots could be used to administer and correct tests – and give instant results. They could also be vital for workplace learning, where entire learning programmes can be delivered by chatbots," said Mr Kostick, who is also founder of Irish start-up Chatbot Creations and editor of thechatbot.net.

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Benefits

He will also stress the benefits of using the technology in HR and in health settings where chatbots are being used to help make appointments.

Mr Kostick is the keynote speaker at the "Chatbots for Workplace Learning" event, organised by the Enterprise Ireland-backed Learnovate Centre. Joining him at the event are David Curran of Open Jaw Technologies, Emer Gilmartin of the Adapt centre at Trinity College Dublin and Shona D'Arcy of Kids Speech Labs.

He leads the Dublin office of SnatchBot, an Israeli-founded enterprise-grade, bot-building platform.

The chatbot market size is projected to grow from $2.6 billion (€2.3 billion) in 2019 to $9.4 billion (€8.5 billion) by 2024 at a compound annual growth rate of 29.7 per cent.

Mr Kostick predicted that chatbots will soon be ubiquitous, no matter what the industry. “In 10 years’ time every business will be using chatbots,” he said.

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor

Charlie Taylor is a former Irish Times business journalist