The age of chatbots | Weboptim
We live in an age of fast communication, which has turned our large and unrecognisable world into a virtual village. Messaging applications have played a key role in this process. These applications have become the global communication spaces that bring everything and everyone together. Today, messaging apps are packed with features that make conversational interfaces even more personal.
Today, the creation of bot platforms and chatbots is the hottest trend in the development of messaging applications. It seems that in the near future, communication applications that do not support chatbots are doomed to fail.
With chatbots, you can order groceries, check the weather, find information about your favourite singers, do your banking... almost anything.
Source: yalantis
So, what is a chatbot? Simply put, it is software with artificial intelligence. Thanks to artificial intelligence, they are able to learn from the information they receive from users. The more information they receive, the smarter they become. They can analyse information and predict the future behaviour of users.
Chat-bot history
The bot era can be traced back to 1950. This was when Alan Turing's famous article on artificial intelligence, "Computing and Intelligence", was published.
Turing proposed the so-called Turing test, which helps to distinguish humans from machines in written communication.
The first chatbots were ELIZA (1966) and PARRY (1972). These early bots were used exclusively to simulate human language and did no other tasks.
The sticks arrived in the second half of the 2000s, when Radiohead's Minotaur was released. Minotaur had more than a million users and sent more than 65 million messages, but died out in less than a year, as did many other bots in that period.
Within a decade, brand new sticks have emerged and become increasingly popular. Why are sticks so popular these days?
We have always sent messages. First physical letters, then email, then SMS, then Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp and other apps. We use messaging apps on a daily basis. No wonder they have become the most popular apps in the world.
The growing popularity of messaging apps and chatbots is most noticeable in China. The most popular messengers - WeChat and Baidu - have become true personal assistants. WeChat has over 800 million users, Baidu over 650 million. These apps can perform a variety of tasks, from uploading media files to making purchases. And all this happens without leaving the app.
Why take messenger bot app development seriously?
1. The emergence of chatbot messenger platforms
Microsoft, Telegram, Facebook bots have all exploded in recent years.
These and other IT companies have developed their own AI-based messaging platforms. Since people are already spending a lot of time on messaging apps on their phones, it makes sense to add additional capabilities to apps that people already like, rather than forcing them to jump between different apps and websites.
Many companies are already taking advantage of the opportunity to integrate their own services into a messaging platform. Product Hunt's Kitty bot for Slack Messenger, CNN's bot for Facebook Messenger and the Foursquare bot for Telegram.
Business Insider reported that at the beginning of 2015, the number of monthly active users of messengers exceeded the number of social network users.
Source: yalantis
2. The emergence of new types of applications
Chatbot developers are following the trend and creating new products to help you perform various tasks using natural language.
In 2016, we saw apps such as Penny, which helps us manage our finances; Lark, an app that helps us achieve our fitness goals; and Luka, a messenger that created interactions between bots and humans.
All of these applications use natural language and artificial intelligence to facilitate interactions between users and applications.
There are two types of chatbot
If you're already convinced that chatbots are the future of mobile app development, there are two types of bots you can develop:
1. Bots implemented in your own applications (e.g. Penny)
These bots work within applications that perform a specific function (searching for a place or shopping in an e-commerce application) to automate interactions between users and an application. This approach is suitable for businesses that already have many users.
2. Bots in messengers (such as the CNN bot in Facebook Messenger)
These bots work in messengers that support bots. This type of bot is more for businesses that do not yet have a large audience. Plus, they are cheaper than creating a standalone app.
The creation of a chatbot not only provides users with a solution to a problem, but also creates a platform to communicate directly with the target audience, even to set up a customer service.
How do chatbots work?
Chatbots perform tasks exclusively through text messaging. Chatbots can understand text messages from users in two ways:
1. Strict orders
Chatbots that rely on strict command sets are very limited. They only respond to perfectly crafted commands that need to be programmed. For example, Telegram's music bot can search for music, but only if you use commands such as "/random" to get specific numbers. If you try to talk to the music stick in any other way than using these commands, it will reply that it is sorry, but it cannot find anything that matches the request.
Source: yalantis
2. Natural Language Processing (NLP)
NLP-based chatbots are more intelligent, relying on machine learning. You don't need to use strict commands to interact with them. Instead, you can talk to them like a real human. We can say "Hey, how's the world?" to get the latest news, or "Oh, I'm hungry!" to order food.
Source: yalantis
The technology behind chat bots
You can use any programming language that relies on fixed commands or machine learning. Now let's take a look at the technologies used to create chat bots. These technologies can be grouped into two categories: API and GUI technologies.
API
Let's look at a simple example. Imagine you have an e-commerce site selling shoes. There are two ways to interact with the website:
GUI (Graphical User Interface)
TUI (Textual User Interface)
The first option is the one we are used to. The graphical user interface has buttons, menus, tabs, etc. So to buy the perfect pair of shoes, you need to do the following:
Go to the website
Browse products
Choose something you like
Put it in the shopping basket
Fill in the payment form
Wait for delivery
But chatbots work with a text user interface (TUI), which means you can communicate with a service using text commands. If you want to buy shoes, you can send a message to the appropriate bot saying you want to order shoes, and it can send you multiple options.
To implement TUI and teach the bot to facilitate interactions between the base (in our case, the e-commerce website) and the user, we need to integrate the API. The API connects our bot to the application in which we hosted our bot and allows us to respond to users' requests and perform tasks.
Machine learning
As mentioned earlier, we can use machine learning to create smarter chatbots that respond to more natural language commands. Machine learning technologies allow bots to recognize speech and data, learn patterns in natural language, and interpret data based on previous interactions.
Source: yalantis
What does the future hold for chatbots?
In the near future, almost everyone will be able to create their own bot, thanks to a wide variety of tools that allow you to build bots without coding.
Many developers believe that chatbots can completely replace native applications. Here are some reasons why this might be the case:
1. Native applications are expensive to build, maintain and update
2. No user interface needed with the chatbot
3. Bots can learn from users
4. The app glut makes it much harder for a business to convince potential users to install an app
Talking to a robot doesn't sound like a crazy idea anymore. Time to catch the modern wave and take advantage of new technologies to achieve your business goals!
Source: yalantis.com
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