What is a chatbot? A chatbot is a computer program. This program can carry on a conversation with another human being. These programs are specially designed to simulate human conversation. Chatbots are used for customer service or information acquisition. Some chatterbots use sophisticated natural language processing systems.
The term “ChatterBot” originated with Michael Mauldin in 1994 to describe these conversational programs. Other terms for these computer programs include talkbot, Bot, IM bot, Artificial Conversational Entity or interactive agent.
In answer to the question what is a chatbot, chatbots are software applications that you chat with to perform tasks or for entertainment. Instead of opening a weather app to see the temperature you could ask a chatbot instead. Chatbots can become personal assistants or chat with you about whatever is relevant. Some chatbots even have humans that can intervene when questions become too complicated for a chatbot to handle.
Another answer to the question what is a chatbot is that a chatbot is a messaging app. It incorporates Artificial Intelligence (AI) technology and other connected services. This enables the chatbot to converse with the user. Google Allo, Alexa and Siri are all examples of chatbots. They interpret human speech and make personalized suggestions.
Chatbots help to make mobile customer interaction lively and engaging. Chatbots eliminate the need to download apps to perform a variety of tasks. They will act as calculators, booking agents or music players. Chatbots will eliminate the need to store many different apps on a mobile device. This saves storage space for other things. Chatbots will also help the mobile app to become more intelligent.
Chatbots can help to answer frequently asked questions that mobile apps used to handle. Often customer support is unable to process the large number of requests that are thrown at them. Chatbots can handle a large volume of user requests and are able to help the customer support team address these issues. Chatbots can also handle many of the repetitive tasks given to mobile apps. Online sales can be handled by chatbots on the go. Users can use a chatbot to prepare a short questionnaire used to plan an itinerary.
Chatbots can handle services including booking hotel rooms, buying movie tickets, and purchasing flight tickets in one app. Chatbots can track customer responses and feedback. As machine learning and natural language processing advance, the responses given by chatbots will improve. Machine learning bots can obtain their knowledge from user behavior. They can then respond to each user with a personalized message. When chatbots are trained to respond to human interactions, chatbots will provide more information with intelligent responses. Hopefully, this answers the question what is a chatbot?
Chatbots could change everything about how people surf the Web. In the future, you could ask a chatbot, “I wonder if it will rain today?” A chatbot would know your location and be able to answer conversationally about whether you should bring an umbrella. This eliminates the need for apps or search boxes.
Daryl Plummer, managing Vice President at Gartner, believes that by 2020, artificial intelligence (AI) will dominate both our social and business cultures. Chatbots will handle everything from customer service interactions to lead discovery conversations. People will enjoy engaging with chatbots. These bots are trained to deliver targeted messages with their differing personalities that will make them seem like one human is talking to another human.
The world’s most powerful tech companies think that chatbots are the hottest new thing in tech. Microsoft’s best-known bot, Cortana, is an example of a “universal bot” or interface bot” that spans the entire device instead of coming with an app. Apple’s Siri is one of the most well-known chatbots. Siri is a conversational chatbot.
Facebook has been testing a know-it-all assistant called M that can handle any request. There is a rumor that Facebook may soon launch a “bot store”. Facebook is pushing to turn Messenger into the conversation platform of the future. The company is building conversational, messenger-style bots. These chatbots can assist and sometimes replace traditional customer service representatives.
Kik, the messaging app loved by teens, has already opened up its own Bot Shop. Google has Google Now for Android phones. Google is working on something bigger another rumor. Alexa is a smart game-changing bot from Amazon.
Slack has built a chatbot business messaging company valued at $3.8 billion. Slack is hoping to become the messenger solution for businesses looking for free business advertising. Viv, from the creators of Siri, is an “assistant” able to string many questions together using AI. The chatbot will then give you the right answer. These assistants are designed to save time. They are changing the way humans interact with their mobile phone devices.
AI and chatbots will change the future of selling online. Chatbots are conversational. They fit into the conversational nature of the Web. Amazon, Netflix and other companies are experimenting with developing AI-enhanced recommendation tools to help sales professionals sell more. Google, Facebook and Amazon have been successful in using AI to target consumers with ads and special offers online for many years. Now you know the answer to the question what is a chatbot?
Here is a brief historical timeline of chatbots to answer the question what is a chatbot?