Natural Language Processing (NLP) has been a technology to watch over the past few years, but in 2020 it emerged as a mission-critical tool for businesses. With the advent of dispersed workforces, closed brick-and-mortar stores, and overwhelmed healthcare systems, NLP in healthcare has helped enable solutions from virtual assistants and customer service chatbots, to automating mundane tasks and aiding in vaccine development—and the enterprise is taking notice. In fact, 53% of respondents from a recent global survey reported their NLP budget was at least 10% higher this year compared to 2019, with 31% stating their budget was at least 30% higher than the previous year.