Today, we released: “The Forrester New Wave: Chatbots for IT Operations, Q4 2020.” We looked at the top nine vendors in the market today and evaluated them across 10 criteria. Organizations looking to improve employee technology experience or increase their automation capabilities can use IT chatbot platforms to:

  • Deflect tickets from the help desk
  • Automate Q&A — help users locate needed information faster
  • Reduce time to assistance for end users
  • Assist IT operations pros in daily activities
  • Improve the user experience with IT

What changed from last year? First, the types of vendors involved. This year, we added in vendors from the automation aggregator space, as profiled in our Now Tech. Second, we placed an increased focus on predeveloped IT capabilities and ease of implementation.

We found four Leaders in today’s market: Amelia (IPsoft), Avaamo, Espressive, and Moveworks. Amelia and Avaamo, both virtual agent platforms, stood out due to:

  • Strong advanced language processing capabilities
  • Multipronged automation strategy (including robotic process automation)
  • Advanced performance and optimization analytics

Espressive and Moveworks, automation aggregators, lead with:

  • Ease of customer adoption and automation
  • Ease of integration into existing customer ecosystems
  • Reduced development requirements

Another three vendors — Freshworks, Serviceaide and ServiceNow — are Strong Performers; ManageEngine, and BMC Software are Contenders.

With the importance of automation, self-service, and remote support growing, now is the time to consider investing in chatbots for IT ops. If you want to benchmark your current experience management against the providers in our Forrester New Wave or are looking for a new provider, this report is the best starting point for you.

If you’d like to learn more about this space, I recommend the following resources:

Read my “Now Tech: Chatbots For IT Operations, Q3 2020” report, which includes a large number of other vendors not in the official Forrester New Wave report.

Schedule an inquiry me, Will McKeon-White, or with my coauthor, Charlie Betz, by emailing inquiry@forrester.com.