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Total UK advertising spend will hit £35bn in 2022
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The latest Advertising Association/WARC Expenditure Report has forecast the value of the UK’s advertising market will grow by 9.2% in 2022, to a total of £34.9bn, a slight downgrade of 1.7pp from the previous forecast in July.

This is due to high levels of inflation and squeezed margins as the UK deals with supply chain inflation and subsequent rise in the cost of living. Within the media sector, advertisers are also facing higher media costs.

UK ad spend rose by 8.8% in Q2 2022, to a total of £8.6bn, while spend during the first half of the year was up 14.4% at £16.7bn. Advertising spend is projected to near £10bn during Q4, featuring the combination of Christmas and the World Cup.

Online advertising’s share of total ad spend is set to grow to a total of 74.% for 2022 and is expected to rise to 75.2% in 2023. Figures from our Digital Adspend study with PwC for Q1 2022 shows online classified advertising – including recruitment advertising and property listings – was up by almost a third. Broadcaster video-on demand continued to grow (+9.3%) as audiences turned to catch-up and streaming platforms.

Ad spend for the final quarter of 2022 is set to increase by 4.5% from last year’s record high, to a total of £9.5bn, setting a new record level of investment during the Christmas period. Search advertising – including ecommerce – is forecast to be one of the quickest growing media over the quarter, rising by 7.3% to a total of £3.4bn. Video-on-demand stands out amongst the wider market with expected growth of 4.2%.

Stephen Woodford, Chief Executive, Advertising Association, said: “It is encouraging to see strong figures in Q2, with media channels continuing their recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic. Looking forwards, political and economic stability is much-needed, given the inflationary and recessionary forces impacting all businesses. As companies navigate these pressures, we see them continuing to prioritise advertising investment to protect their brands in exceptionally challenging market conditions.”

Media Q2 2022

year-on-year % change

 H1 2022 year-on-year % change

 

 2022 forecast year-on-year % change Percentage point (pp) change in 2022 forecast vs July 2023 forecast year-on-year % change
Search 10.8% 16.5% 11.7% -1.5pp 6.2%
Online display* 5.4% 8.1% 7.1% -4.3pp 5.9%
TV -0.6% 8.7% 2.9% -3.0pp 0.5%
  of which VOD 9.3% 17.2% 10.1% -3.2pp 7.2%
Online classified* 32.4% 41.4% 20.1% +14.5pp -4.5%
Direct mail 3.8% 9.5% 2.8% +3.0pp -4.5%
Out of home 46.4% 79.1% 31.2% +2.3pp 4.8%
  of which digital 48.2% 78.8% 32.3% +1.8pp 8.4%
National newsbrands 9.1% 12.6% 3.4% +2.3pp -2.5%
  of which online 13.2% 16.3% 8.2% +1.6pp 3.7%
Radio 7.0% 13.1% 6.2% +0.8pp 0.1%
  of which online 5.9% 14.6% 8.1% -2.6pp 6.3%
Magazine brands 3.3% 5.0% 0.7% +2.0pp -5.9%
  of which online 3.9% 9.9% 5.4% +1.4pp -1.7%
Regional newsbrands 0.6% 10.3% 2.6% +2.6pp -7.1%
  of which online 5.3% 13.8% 7.2% -0.8pp -0.5%
Cinema 2,208.2% 3,978.0% 174.0% -17.2pp 21.1%
TOTAL AD SPEND 8.8% 14.4% 9.2% -1.7pp 3.9%
Note: Broadcaster VOD, digital revenues for newsbrands, magazine brands, and radio station websites are also included within online display and classified totals, so care should be taken to avoid double counting. Online radio includes targeted in-stream radio/audio advertising sold by UK commercial radio companies, together with online S&P inventory.

Source: AA/WARC Expenditure Report, October 2022

The Advertising Association/WARC quarterly Expenditure Report is the definitive guide to advertising expenditure in the UK with data and forecasts for different media going back to 1982.

Top social marketing for 20223 revealed
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In 2023, businesses that take a social-first approach to their brand and customer care strategy will be the ones to reap the benefits. Stronger brand reputation, greater customer interaction, trust and loyalty – now and in the future – depends on it.

That’s the conclusion of Hootsuite’s 7th Annual Social Trends Report, leveraging surveys from over 10,600 marketers and primary interviews with social marketing practitioners, leaders, observers and partners.

Here are the top insights for marketers to consider in the year to come:

  • Big brands are investing less in influencer marketing, opening the door for small businesses to engage top creators (at lower price points!)
  • Social’s newfound exposure in the C-suite opens it up to new levels of scrutiny – with differing opinions on what ROI looks like among social marketers and senior leaders
  • Recycling content becomes a thing of the past; marketers stop chasing new features and start getting more strategic, creating more creative, unique content for fewer platforms
  • Social commerce loses traction with platform pull back, but is only a loss to those that follow suit; marketers with the patience to hold on see new opportunities to gain a competitive edge
  • Google, who? Social search optimization emerges as a make-or-break skill for marketers
  • The return to brick-and-mortar shopping makes businesses lose focus on digital customer service – opening the door for chatbot adopters to gain a massive advantage
  • Marketers don’t feel equipped for digital customer service, and the implications of unanswered DMs are further reaching than one might think

At the time that last year’s Social Trends Report was released, pandemic restrictions were starting to ease and markets were booming – a positive turn of events that had many feeling optimistic for the future. However, looking ahead into 2023, a looming recession, rising inflation, declining consumer spending, and workforce reductions across major business sectors have made decision making precarious for businesses of all sizes. Despite this uncertainty, Hootsuite’s report shows that there is good news on the horizon.

Social marketers are experiencing a defining moment in history for the industry. After decades of advocating for social to have a seat at the boardroom table, it’s finally happening – social marketers are getting more agency over their work, and social media marketing has matured as a profession.

“Social media has never played a more central role to businesses. As businesses continue to look for ways to future-proof operations and connect with today’s tech-savvy customers, social media and digital marketing will inevitably play a part in nearly every business strategy,” said Maggie Lower, Chief Marketing Officer, Hootsuite. “In 2023, businesses that take a social-first approach to their brand and customer care strategy will be the ones to reap the benefits. Stronger brand reputation, greater customer interaction, trust and loyalty – now and in the future – depends on it.”

Social has become intrinsically intertwined with how people live, work, operate, and shop — with more than 4.7 billion people around the globe now using social media. While keeping up with all the evolving trends can be intimidating, Hootsuite’s Social Trends Report offers marketers a guide to the wild world of social — complete with simple, specific recommendations — to help them gain an edge on their social strategy in 2023 and build community and connection with their customers.

“In a year marked by global economic and social upheaval, brands and organizations are looking for tools to help navigate their business through the noise to connect with their customers — and with even more urgency as we all become more digital and connected,” said Tom Keiser, Chief Executive Officer, Hootsuite. “With the launch of our 2023 Trends Report, we’re proud to provide our insights, recommendations and tangible recommendations to help organizations not only successfully navigate the digital wilderness, but also adapt to new buyer trends, find new ways to support their customers, and identify new paths for growth.”

To help our customers put the top social trends into action in real-time, we have paired each trend within the report with newly-created resources that social media marketers can build into their strategy and begin using today. The suite of resources developed to support this report (available for download at the links below) include:

Download the full report.

Digital skills shortage impacting multiple UK sectors
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Demand for digitally skilled workers in UK vertical industries including technology, finance, ecommerce and retail, is outgrowing the level of digital skills available.

Yet, only half (51%) of British companies within these vertical industries are willing to spend more than £25,000 on recruitment and learning and development (L&D) combined, to boost skills such as cybersecurity, software architecture and data analysis.

That’s according to research from O’Reilly, conducted by Censuswide in September 2022, which surveyed 300 HR decision-makers within the technology, finance, ecommerce and retail industries (100 per industry) to identify the digital skills most in demand and potential barriers to upskilling staff.

More than a quarter (27%) of the HR decision makers surveyed say their organisation faces the biggest lack of skilled workers in cybersecurity, followed by software architecture (15%) and data analysis (14%). Despite this, only a third (33%) are willing to spend more than £10,000 on recruitment and L&D to hire cybersecurity talent. Meanwhile, the majority of organisations plan to spend no more than £10,000 on recruitment and L&D for data analysis (71%) and software architecture (68%) skills.

Instead, almost a third of organisations plan to spend up to or more than £20,000 on recruitment for AI and ML (32%) and cloud (31%). Additionally, more than a quarter of organisations will spend up to or more than £20,000 on AI and ML (29%) and cloud (28%) L&D to upskill employees. Organisations will spend the most on L&D for Gen Z (average £13,962), followed by £13,608 for Millennials and £13,495 for Gen X over the next twelve months.

Disparity in recruitment vs L&D spend

Encouragingly, the majority (83%) of vertical industries plan to spend between £25,000 – £50,000 on overall recruitment for skilled tech vacancies over the next twelve months. Yet, only 78% will spend the same amount on tech-related L&D.

The technology sector is planning to spend the most on overall recruitment (average of £33,676), compared to £31,651 on L&D. Additionally, the finance sector will spend an average of £33,075 on recruitment compared to £31,400 on L&D, while the retail and ecommerce sector will spend an average of £29,275 on recruitment versus £28,801 on L&D.

The biggest barrier to upskilling current employees for more than two fifths (21%) of organisations is insufficient resources, followed by a lack of internal personnel (19%) and a lack of internal buy-in (17%). In the tech sector specifically, 21% of organisations say lack of leadership support is a key barrier to upskilling current employees. However, across all industries combined, 58% of HR decision makers feel ‘significantly’ supported by leadership when it comes to investment in tech-related L&D.

“It’s encouraging that 80% of companies within the UK’s tech, finance and retail sectors have increased investment for tech-related learning and development over the past three years. However, our data suggests that further investment is needed to recession-proof the UK’s vertical industries,” said Alexia Pedersen, VP of EMEA at O’Reilly.

“With the pound currently at a 37-year low against the dollar, now is the time for companies to deploy upskilling programmes alongside ongoing recruitment efforts. Likewise, employees should prioritise L&D to safeguard their role and make themselves an invaluable asset to their organisation. This will be key to creating a highly skilled workforce that keeps British businesses at the forefront of their industries globally.”

Global email marketing software market to reach $2.5bn by 2027
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The global market for Email Marketing Software is projected to reach a revised size of $2.5 billion by 2027, growing at a CAGR of 9.2% from $1.3 billion in  2020.

On-Premise, one of the segments analysed in the ReportLinker research, is projected to record 5.4% CAGR and reach $856.1 million by the end of the analysis period.

After an early analysis of the business implications of the pandemic and its induced economic crisis, growth in the Cloud segment is readjusted to a revised 11.8% CAGR for the next 7-year period.

The Email Marketing Software market in the US is estimated at $364.5 million in 2020. China, the world’s second largest economy, is forecast to reach a projected market size of $504.3 million by 2027, trailing a CAGR of 12.2% over the analysis period.

Among the other noteworthy geographic markets are Japan and Canada, each forecast to grow at 6% and 7.7% respectively over the 2020-2027 period. Within Europe, Germany is forecast to grow at approximately 6.9% CAGR.

Global tech spending predicted to surpass $4.8 trillion in 2023
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Global tech spending will reach more than $4.8 trillion in 2023 as two-thirds of technology decision-makers increase their tech budgets, despite increasing economic uncertainty.

Additionally, boffins at Forrester says that in the coming year, to stay competitive, future fit tech leaders will take a more practical approach to innovation experiments to prioritise customer needs — 80% of companies will pivot their innovation efforts from creativity to resilience.

This is all according to Forrester’s 2023 Tech Leadership Predictions, which offers research and frameworks designed to help tech leaders take charge in fueling their organisations’ future growth through the creation and execution of adaptive and resilient technology strategies. This new research includes:

  • Predictions 2023: Tech Leadership. Technology companies are under distress due to capital flow reductions, higher interest rates, and fears of reduced customer demand. In 2023, tech leaders should review their vendors well in advance of upcoming renewal cycles and build contingency plans accounting for software-as-a-service (SaaS) failures, spinouts, and product retirements. There will also be an anticipated uptick of whistleblowers stepping up to hold tech leaders accountable, forcing CIOs to act. Join this keynote to discover what the future holds for tech leaders in 2023.
  • The State Of Future Fit Technology Strategy, 2022. According to Forrester’s latest research, companies that met customers’ needs by being future fit, even in uncertain times, grew revenue 1.8 times faster than their peers. With more than 75% of business and tech professionals at future fit organizations strongly agreeing that their organizations can easily absorb major business changes, tech platforms are key to accelerating organizations’ transformation and innovation journeys. Join this session to learn best practices for creating a future fit platform strategy that powers business outcomes.
  • A Skills-Based Talent Strategy Is Central To An Adaptive Organization. As tech leaders struggle to attract the right talent, they will need to create an adaptive organization that continuously develops and applies knowledge and skills to drive resilience. Join this session to learn how to rethink tech skills and competencies in order to build a future fit strategy that broadens the talent roster.
  • The Top 10 Emerging Technologies In 2022. According to Forrester, 65% of tech professionals say their firm will increase spending on emerging technologies over the next 12 months. Future fit tech organizations are poised to see positive near-term ROI in four emerging tech categories: extended reality (XR), AI-powered TuringBots, Web3, and Zero Trust edge. Join this keynote to learn more about which emerging technologies are ready now, which are going to take some time, and which have a long way to go.

“Looking ahead, future fit tech leaders will take a pragmatic but opportunistic approach to enhance their organizations’ operational resilience despite any uncertainty to outpace the long shadow of the pandemic,” said Matthew Guarini, event host and VP and senior research director at Forrester. “At Technology & Innovation North America, we will unveil research and insights for tech leaders to overcome this complex landscape — turning lessons learned from difficult times into capabilities that will ensure that their organizations are more adaptive and successful long term.”

Marketers use just 42% of their ‘martech stack’ capabilities
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Marketers report utilising just 42% of the breadth of capabilities available in their martech stack overall, down from 58% in 2020.

Gartner surveyed 324 marketers in May and June 2022 to determine the state of marketing technology acquisition, adoption and use.

“CMOs reported allocating a quarter of their entire marketing expense budgets to marketing technologies in 2022,” said Benjamin Bloom, VP Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice.

“Despite turbulent budgets in previous years and current economic headwinds, tech investments are a priority for CMOs and proving their ROI is more crucial than ever,” Bloom said. “Yet the challenges associated with martech underutilization, such as new business models and disrupted customer journeys, are making it difficult for marketers to demonstrate technology’s value.”

The 16 percentage point drop in overall martech utilization in the past two years can be attributed to a significant amount of overlap among marketing technology solutions (30% of respondents), difficulty identifying and recruiting talent to drive adoption/utilization (28%), and complexity/sprawl of the marketing technology ecosystem (27%).

Martech Stacks Prepare for a Cookieless Future With New Adtech and Commerce Capabilities

One of the tools identified by survey respondents that support innovative marketing channels was social commerce, with 62% of respondents saying they have deployed, or plan to deploy, such technology (see Figure 1). Technology to support advertising execution and measurement in audio and streaming/connected TV (CTV) environments has also found a base of support, with 65% of respondents exploring or piloting associated technologies.

Figure 1. How Marketing Leaders Are Leveraging Technology to Support Emerging Activities (% of Respondents)

Source: Gartner (September 2022)

Marketers also indicated interest in commercial activity within more emerging technologies. This includes the metaverse and non-fungible tokens (NFTs), with 62% exploring or piloting technology to support metaverse advertising and 59% exploring or piloting technology to enable creation of NFTs.

“The fact that marketers are already leveraging technology to support emerging activities underscores their desire to outfox the competition and get a head start on controlling their own destinies in a world of more fallible identifiers,” said Bloom.

To maximize the value of martech investments, Gartner recommends marketing leaders:

  • Infuse marketing technology adoption and utilization goals into team performance objectives to minimize wasted investments.
  • Manage the risk of expensive integrated suite investments. Establish alternatives to preserve negotiation leverage and persistently validate the vendor’s ability to support desired martech capabilities.
  • Review the approach to supporting customer journey orchestration with technology to ensure that martech and IT collaborate through capability-focused delivery teams using an iterative approach.
  • Avoid leaving investments in tools and technologies for social commerce, podcast advertising and CTV/over-the-top (OTT) streaming advertising to agencies or service providers by default. Pursue long-term in-house capability development around these tools and include them in their martech roadmap.

68% of UK marketers are embracing hybrid working
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More than two thirds (68%) of UK marketers are embracing a hybrid approach to work to support their teams in the creation of new ideas having overcome the challenges of the past two years.

That’s according to research from digital experience platform (DXP) provider Optimizely, which concluded that creativity is critical in driving strong customer experiences.

The Marketer Experience study, based on a global survey of in-house marketing professionals, including 200 in the UK, explores attitudes and approaches to creativity. It reveals that 85% of UK marketers say as long as communication is effective, creative ideation will happen no matter where teams are.

The report also shows that physical presence is not the only factor impacting creative behaviours, with UK marketers citing the following as the top five barriers to driving creativity over the past two years:

  1. A lack of urgency (32%)
  2. Limited or lack of access to good collaboration tools (31%)
  3. Engaging remote employees during virtual meetings (31%)
  4. Leadership team putting pressure on outcomes and results (29%)
  5. Motivating employees to develop creative ideas (28%)

A hybrid working environment also supports the ways in which UK workers find their creative inspiration, with 43% drawing on interpersonal communications with peers and/or colleagues, 41% from social media such as TikTok, Instagram and Twitter, and 40% through internet research. More than one third (37%) also find inspiration from attending events, either in-person or virtual.

Download the Optimizely report; “The 2022 Marketer’s Experience: Hybrid Work Impacts Delivery of Exceptional Customer Experiences.”

Marketing analytics are only influencing 53% of decisions
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Marketing analytics are responsible for influencing just over half (53%) of marketing decisions, according to a survey by Gartner.

In May and June 2022, Gartner surveyed 377 users of marketing analytics to explore the role of marketing analytics in decision making.

“CMOs often believe that achieving marketing data integration goals will lead to greater influence and increased value of marketing analytics,” said Joseph Enever, Sr. Director Analyst in the Gartner Marketing practice. “The reality is that better data won’t increase marketing analytics’ decision influence alone. CMOs must address the real challenges — cognitive biases and the need for a data-informed culture.”

The survey found that the quantity of marketing decisions that analytics influences does matter: Organizations that report marketing analytics influence fewer than 50% of decisions are more likely to agree that they are unable to prove the value of marketing. Once marketing analytics teams cross that 50% threshold, there are likely diminishing returns to striving to increase the quantity of decisions influenced.

“By 2023, Gartner expects 60% of CMOs will slash the size of their marketing analytics department in half because of failed promised improvements,” said Enever.

Top Barriers to Marketing Analytics’ Influence: Data Quality Challenges and Cognitive Biases

Consumers of marketing analytics continue to cite evergreen data management challenges as the top reason analytics are not used when making decisions. The challenges of “data are inconsistent across sources” and “data are difficult to access” rose to the top in this year’s survey.

Marketing organizations regularly respond to these challenges by integrating more data or acquiring different technology seen as a fix-all approach to marketing data management — yet they fail to realize tangible impacts on key outcomes. For example, marketers experience diminishing marginal returns on data integration when pursuing a 360-degree view of the customer.

Barriers to the use of marketing analytics in decision making are not always caused by data integration challenges unique to marketing — rather, much of this boils down to people and/or process problems.

For instance, key cognitive biases are at the root of marketing analytics’ influence plateau. One-third of respondents reported that decision makers cherry-pick data to try to tell a story that aligns with their preconceived decision or opinion.

In addition, roughly a quarter of respondents said that decision makers do not review the information provided by the marketing analytics team (26%), reject their recommendations (24%), or rely on gut instincts to ultimately make their choice (24%).

CMOs must address these challenges by:

  • Tracking the decisions that are made based on analytics to provide a current state of view and areas to improve. Identify examples of marketing analytics work that provided actionable recommendations to a marketing campaign or program. Marketing leaders should encourage their team to look for patterns in decision-making habits and to document the types of decisions they influence.
  • Combatting cherry-picking. Set KPIs and metrics before launching a new campaign or marketing strategy, not after the data has already started to come in.
  • Encouraging senior leaders to set an example. Avoid being a HiPPO (Highest Paid Person’s Opinion) and actually allow data to inform, or change, decisions.
  • Establish analytics upskilling programs that account for differing workflows and resource constraints across the marketing organization. Build personas that detail how different employees need to use data in their roles and prioritize training sessions that best enable participants to learn the skills they need to perform their job.

Economy will make digital planning difficult to navigate in 2023
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Business leaders who plan for “business as usual” modest spending increases in the year ahead will fall short, due to an unpredictable and turbulent economy, so will need to tackle planning with discipline and precision in order to trim waste, experiment, and make bold, smart investments.

That’s the conclusion of Forrester’s latest Planning Guides, which provide benchmark data and insights to help technology, marketing, digital, CX, product and sales leaders prioritise 2023 budget investments.

The reports highlight where to increase investment and cut spending, as well as which emerging technologies to experiment with in 2023. Key insights from Forrester’s 2023 Planning Guides include:

Areas to increase investment in 2023:

  • Customer insights and engagement. With 2023 unlikely to look like any past recession, many assumptions about customers and their behavior will be rendered useless. Leaders should invest in new customer data and analytics tools, such as experience research platforms (XPRs), to sharpen audience targeting strategies.
  • Technologies that improve CX and reduce costs. Current economic headwinds will require focusing on technology tuned for optimization and resilience. Leaders should invest in tools that drive loyalty and reduce operational costs, such as robotic process automation (RPA) and agent-assist apps.

Areas to decrease investment in 2023:

  • Technical debt — including cloud. Many thought the cloud would be the antidote to technical debt, but yesterday’s lifted-and-shifted workloads are now debt themselves given how inefficient to operate and difficult to upgrade they are. In 2023, leaders should consider early cloud deployments as candidates for technical debt reductions.
  • Low-quality data partners and innovation outsourcing. Partners will continue to play an important role in growth, but two key areas are ripe for cuts. As the quality of third-party data continues to drop, leaders should streamline these partnerships to only those that add value to customer relationships. Second, firms that relied too heavily on partners for digital innovation during the pandemic-induced digital sprint should bring more innovation in house.

Areas for experimentation in 2023:

  • Extended reality, the metaverse, and Web3 that offer immersive experiences. These interlinked — and arguably overhyped — technologies hold the promise of immersive experiences linked to token-based ecosystems that use cryptocurrencies and public blockchains. Leaders in consumer industries should experiment with metaverse precursor platforms such as Roblox and Decentral to open doors to new audiences.
  • Intelligent agents that make experiences more human. An intelligent agent (IA) can make decisions or perform a service based on its environment, user input, and experiences. Leaders should plan to experiment with IAs on an ongoing basis to utilize their full potential.

“Leaders are faced with navigating a tumultuous business landscape defined by global unrest, supply chain instability and soaring inflation, as well as the ongoing aftermath of the pandemic,” said Sharyn Leaver, chief research officer at Forrester. “Tackling 2023 budget planning is a daunting task, but Forrester’s Planning Guides will help leaders make more strategic and disciplined decisions to drive business growth at a time of such uncertainty.”

Conversational AI will reduce contact centre agent staff costs by $80bn in 2026
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Conversational artificial intelligence (AI) deployments within contact centres will reduce agent staff costs by $80 billion by 2026, according to Gartner.

Furthermore, worldwide end-user spending on conversational AI solutions within contact centres is forecast to reach $1.99 billion in 2022.

“Gartner estimates that there are approximately 17 million contact center agents worldwide today,” said Daniel O’Connell, VP analyst at Gartner. “Many organizations are challenged by agent staff shortages and the need to curtail labor expenses, which can represent up to 95% of contact center costs. Conversational AI makes agents more efficient and effective, while also improving the customer experience.”

Gartner projects that one in 10 agent interactions will be automated by 2026, an increase from an estimated 1.6% of interactions today that are automated using AI. Conversational AI can automate all or part of a contact center customer interaction through both voice and digital channels, through voicebots or chatbots, and it is expected to have transformational benefits to customer service and support organizations within two years.

“While automating a full interaction – also known as call containment or deflection – corresponds to significant cost savings, there is also value in partial containment, such as automating the identification of a customer’s name, policy number and reason for calling. Capturing this information using AI could reduce up to a third of the interaction time that would typically be supported by a human agent,” said O’Connell.

While the benefits of conversational AI are compelling, the technology is still maturing. A fragmented vendor landscape and complexity of deployments will result in measured adoption through the next two years.

“Implementing conversational AI requires expensive professional resources in areas such as data analytics, knowledge graphs and natural language understanding,” said O’Connell. “Once built, the conversational AI capabilities must be continuously supported, updated and maintained, resulting in additional costs.”

Complex, large-scale conversational AI deployments can take multiple years as more call flows are built out and existing call flows are fine-tuned for improvement. Gartner estimates integration pricing at $1,000 to $1,500 per conversational AI agent, though some organizations cite costs of up to $2,000 per agent. Therefore, early adoption of conversational AI will be primarily led by organizations with 2,500 or more agents with budget for the requisite technical resources.