Based on 152 reviews and ratings
IBM Watson Assistant
Based on 122 reviews and ratings
Highlights
Conversica and IBM Watson Assistant are both AI virtual sales assistant software designed to help salespeople automate processes such as lead qualification and meeting scheduling. IBM Watson Assistant and Conversica are both most popular with small to mid-sized businesses, who can leverage sales automation to lessen the workload of their sales team. Conversica is the more popular of the two with larger enterprises, perhaps due to its lead generation features.
Features
Conversica and IBM Watson Assistant both include essential AI virtual sales assistant software features such as sales process automation, but they also have a few standout features that set them apart from each other.
Conversica automatically follows up with leads that don’t quite meet a business’s metrics for them to be reached out to by your sales team. The chatbot and email automation features of Conversica stops potentially interested clients from slipping through the cracks. Conversica can also be easily customized and can use machine learning to better understand the kinds of leads a business is looking for. In addition to generating leads, Conversica can also be used to drive attendance to events such as webinars or conferences.
IBM Watson Assistant is a dedicated chatbot creation software. Compared to other software, IBM Watson Assistant provides a simple process and framework for users to create chatbots with minimal training. IBM Watson Assistant is also built around automatically learning user intent based on a small amount of training data. Users of IBM Watson Assistant claim high user intent accuracy rates with as few as 20 pieces of training data.
Limitations
Though Conversica and IBM Watson Assistant both provide essential AI virtual sales assistant features, they also have a few limitations that are important to consider.
Conversica offers robust chatbot, email automation, and marketing features, but it isn’t as simple to set up as IBM Watson Assistant. Businesses should expect to need some training to get the most out of Conversica. Additionally, Conversica is more limited when creating custom messages or chat behaviors, compared to IBM Watson Assistant, which provides a variety of options for chatbot messaging.
IBM Watson Assistant makes it easy to set up a chatbot that can determine the intent of users, but it doesn’t offer the same lead generation and marketing features included in Conversica. Businesses looking for lead generation from their AI virtual sales assistant to go along with chatbot features may need to consider other options.
Pricing
Conversica is priced depending on what features are needed by the business. Businesses interested in Conversica can get a quote for whatever set of features they need.
IBM Watson Assistant offers a free pricing tier with basic chatbot features for up to 10,000 messages a month. Beyond the free pricing tier, the Plus pricing tier costs $120 per 1,000 users and supports unlimited messaging and provides analytics for up to 30 days. For bigger enterprises or businesses with specific needs, IBM Watson Assistant can be purchased as an enterprise package whose price is dependent on the organization in question as well as the specific feature needs.
Provided by the TrustRadius Research Team
Published on June 5, 2020
Attribute Ratings
- Conversica is rated higher in 3 areas: Usability, Support Rating, Implementation Rating
- Conversica and IBM Watson Assistant are tied in 2 areas: Likelihood to Recommend, Likelihood to Renew
Likelihood to Recommend

Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Likelihood to Renew

Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Usability

Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Support Rating

Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Online Training

Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Implementation Rating

Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Likelihood to Recommend
Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant
Pros
Conversica
- Conversica is great at working low level leads and surfacing those that are in fact interested in your product or service.
- Conversica is also useful in weeding out leads that are not strong.
- Since Conversica is sending emails to various prospects, customers and opportunities, it allows sales, account managers, service etc, to focus on other activities, thereby saving time and freeing up resources.
IBM Watson Assistant
- Step by step process integrates well with existing infrastructure.
- Machine learning and NLP capabilities are second to none.
- Data implementation and sanitation are easy.
- Deployment and registration are very simple.
- The UI and UX are very intuitive.
- The training material and peer community groups are very helpful.

Cons
Conversica
- The method of standing up campaigns can be a little tedious for administrators because it uses copy/paste of Salesforce Campaign ID instead of just searching for active Salesforce campaigns.
- Understanding the conversation path options that the AI could take is improving greatly, but can still use some improvements for admin awareness when standing up a new conversation.
- Understanding what conversation types exist and how they differ from one another is sometimes difficult to self-serv, but the Conversica team is always very good about helping out explaining these.

IBM Watson Assistant
- It is hard to get used to it in the beginning, better tutorials needed.
- Exportable chats
- Since it is being marketed as anyone can use it, I believe they need to implement that in the product because currently, someone from any other background other than data analytics might find it difficult to use.

Pricing Details
Conversica
General
Free Trial
Free/Freemium Version
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
—Entry-level set up fee?
Starting Price
Conversica Editions & Modules
Edition
Starter Edition | $1,4991 |
---|
- per installation
Additional Pricing Details
A Conversica subscription includes an unlimited number of seats for marketers, sales reps and managers. Different editions include different levels of functionality to match your needs. The service is a monthly subscription with an annual commitment.IBM Watson Assistant
General
Free Trial
Free/Freemium Version
Premium Consulting/Integration Services
Entry-level set up fee?
Starting Price
IBM Watson Assistant Editions & Modules
Edition
Lite | $01 |
---|---|
Plus | $1401 |
Enterprise | Contact for pricing |
- per month
- none
Additional Pricing Details
Billing for the use of Watson Assistant is managed through your IBM Cloud® account. The metrics that are used for billing purposes differ based on your plan type. You can be billed based on the number of API calls made to a service instance or on the number of active users who interact with the instance.Likelihood to Renew
Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant

Usability
Conversica

IBM Watson Assistant
Support Rating
Conversica

IBM Watson Assistant

Online Training
Conversica
IBM Watson Assistant

Implementation Rating
Conversica

IBM Watson Assistant

Alternatives Considered
Conversica

IBM Watson Assistant
Return on Investment
Conversica
- We have found that each conversation type has a different ROI. Some are very hard to report off of, whereas others are easy. this is because some are more built around building awareness of what we offer where they may not purchase it for months down the line.
- Has helped us to save on salaries. If staff were to try to do the same thing our AI Assistant does, it would take them many hours to be as successful.
IBM Watson Assistant
- Handling of large no. of customers (Our RnD Engineers) cost queries
- Cost saving as with more maturity in our FinOps practices, overall cloud spend has decreased.
- No code, hence even our Finance people are able to operate and make small changes as intended.