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 Chatbots are automated programs that help users communicate with
businesses and carry out tasks such as online purchases. While
chatbots have existed in some form for years, they have recently
become a hot topic in the tech business as advances in artificial
intelligence and machine learning make them far more capable and
potentially able to assume a key role in the way customers
communicate with businesses.
Facebook launched chatbots on Tuesday with a handful of partners,
including Shopify, an ecommerce site, and cable TV news network CNN.
The chatbots are part of Facebook's effort to build out its
Messenger instant messaging app as the go-to place for customers to
contact businesses - a strategy that threatens traditional call
centers and may cut personnel costs for some businesses.
"You'll never have to call 1-800-Flowers again," Facebook Chief
Executive Mark Zuckerberg said during the company's annual developer
conference in San Francisco.
Though messaging platforms including Kik, Slack and Telegram already
have chatbots, Facebook is seen having several distinct advantages.
For one, Facebook commands a vast trove of data on the estimated 1.6
billion people who use the main service and the 900 million who use
Messenger. That allows developers to create chatbots that can
personalize tasks, such as making an airline booking or a restaurant
reservation.
"From the enterprise or developer perspective, access to those 1.6
billion people is very exciting," said Lauren Kunze, principal at
Pandorabots, which has been building and deploying chatbots for
companies since 2002.
"People like a personalized experience and when the chatbot can
remember personal details and follow up," she said.
CNN's bot, for example, can learn users' news preferences and
recommend articles and summaries accordingly. For a shopping site,
users could input price ranges and other preferences before
receiving suggestions from the bot.
Tech companies will have to approach chatbots more carefully,
however, after an experimental Microsoft Corp bot, called Tay,
unleashed a barrage of racist and sexist tweets after being
manipulated by Twitter users last month. The company quickly pulled
Tay from the Internet.
A PLACE FOR BUSINESS
Facebook has been steadily adding features to Messenger since it was
spun off as a separate app in 2014.
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Last year, it partnered with Uber [UBER.UL] and Lyft so that users
can order a car without having to go through the ride-sharing apps.
It also recently partnered with KLM Royal Dutch Airlines so that
customers can receive flight updates and booking confirmations
through Messenger.
Chatbots could eventually automate such interactions and eliminate
customer service calls.
"You're offloading the pain of navigating those phone systems," said
Chris Fohlin, director of client strategy at consulting agency
Engine Digital.
Last year, Facebook partnered with online shopping sites Zulily and
Everlane to send customer receipts and order updates through
Messenger. It now sees 1 billion messages sent between users and
businesses every month, said Seth Rosenberg, Messenger's product
manager. That prompted the company to begin experimenting with
chatbots.
"Our goal is to make personalization available at scale for
businesses," Seth Rosenberg, Messenger's product manager, said in an
interview. "It's giving them ways to deeply engage with their
consumers as everything becomes more competitive."
By making Messenger the go-to place for business-to-person
interactions, Facebook hopes people will spend even more time using
the app and increasingly rely on it for day-to-day tasks.
Facebook's chatbots could also threaten businesses' individual apps.
Although there are millions of apps, users spend nearly 90 percent
of their time on five apps, according to research firm Forrester. In
the United States, two of those apps are typically Facebook and
Messenger.
(Reporting by Yasmeen Abutaleb; editing by Jonathan Weber, G Crosse
and Meredith Mazzilli)
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