2020 has been a year of massive growth for applied natural language processing (NLP). Even in the wake of COVID-19 and stunted IT budgets, a recent study showed that NLP spending increased 10-30 percent across organization industries, company sizes, and geographies (Gradient Flow). NLP tools can be implemented in various forms, in verticals from retail to finance to healthcare, and have the power to improve patient and customer experiences, reduce the need for human input, and even help save lives.