CHATBOTS EXPLAINED: Why businesses should be paying attention to the chatbot revolution

[FarCenter]

Advancements in artificial intelligence, coupled with the proliferation of messaging apps, are fueling the development of chatbots — software programs that use messaging as the interface through which to carry out any number of tasks, from scheduling a meeting, to reporting weather, to helping users buy a pair of shoes.

Foreseeing immense potential, businesses are starting to invest heavily in the burgeoning bot economy. A number of brands and publishers have already deployed bots on messaging and collaboration channels, including HP, 1-800-Flowers, and CNN. While the bot revolution is still in the early phase, many believe 2016 will be the year these conversational interactions take off.

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Here are some of the key takeaways:

AI has reached a stage in which chatbots can have increasingly engaging and human conversations, allowing businesses to leverage the inexpensive and wide-reaching technology to engage with more consumers.

Chatbots are particularly well suited for mobile — perhaps more so than apps. Messaging is at the heart of the mobile experience, as the rapid adoption of chat apps demonstrates.

The chatbot ecosystem is already robust, encompassing many different third-party chat bots, native bots, distribution channels, and enabling technology companies.

Chatbots could be lucrative for messaging apps and the developers who build bots for these platforms, similar to how app stores have developed into moneymaking ecosystems.

http://www.businessinsider.com/chatbots-explained-why-businesses-should-be-paying-attention-to-the-chatbot-revolution-2016-7

[lapfog_1]

1. Hello Man, my only friend.

Heard any good jokes recently... you know, funny always?

-Mike i.e. MYCROFTXXX aka Adam Selene.

[Le Gaucher]

2. Will not be too far off when we start diverting call center based sales/customer support to bots.

It's coming

[FarCenter]

3. You might be interacting with some already!

Meet Jill Watson: Georgia Tech's first AI teaching assistant

Professor Ashok Goel recently gave a talk at TEDxSanFrancisco about the use of artificial intelligence to answer students' questions in the forums for his online Knowledge-Based Artificial Intelligence (KBAI) class. Dubbed Jill Watson, the AI teaching assistant was based on IBM's Watson platform, which is perhaps best known as the computer that beat two Jeopardy champions. Jill was developed specifically to handle the high number of forum posts by students enrolled in an online course that is a requirement for Georgia Tech's online master of science in computer science program.

Goel and a team of Georgia Tech graduate students began building Jill Watson last year. She began providing responses to student questions in January, and in his talk, Goel describes some of the early problems Jill experienced and what the team did to make her answers better.

Students in the course were unaware that Jill was not a real person. However, some students suspected that, because it was an AI course, it was possible that there was an AI in use in the forums. Goel tells the story about how students reacted upon learning that Jill wasn't human, which included a number of humorous responses that he shares in the full talk, which can be viewed below.

https://pe.gatech.edu/blog/meet-jill-watson-georgia-techs-first-ai-teaching-assistant

[NBachers]

4. If it keeps me from waiting forever on Panasonic's "Higher than normal call volume" non-service

I'd say it's worth a try. Here's my soap box to trash Panasonic's abusive and abysmal failure of customer "service." Worst I've ever encountered, every single time. A nucking fightmare.