Although still in its infancy, 2020 has been a year of significant growth for Natural Language Processing (NLP). In fact, research from Gradient Flow found that even in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, 53% of technical leaders indicated their NLP budget was at least 10% higher compared to 2019, with 31% stating their budget was at least 30% higher than the previous year. This is quite significant, given most companies are experiencing a downturn in IT budgets, as companies adjusted their spending in response to the pandemic.
With the power to help streamline and even automate tasks across industries, from finance and healthcare to retail and sales, leaders are just beginning to reap the benefits of NLP. As the technology advances further and its value becomes more widely known, NLP can achieve outcomes from handling customer service queries to more mission-critical tasks, like detecting and preventing adverse drug events in a clinical setting. As NLP continues on its growth trajectory, here are some of the top trends to watch in 2021.
