A\u00c2\u00a0chatbot\u00c2\u00a0is a piece of\u00c2\u00a0software\u00c2\u00a0that conducts a\u00c2\u00a0conversation\u00c2\u00a0via auditory or textual methods.\u00c2\u00a0Such programs are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner, although as of 2019, they are far short of being able to pass the\u00c2\u00a0Turing test.\u00c2\u00a0Chatbots are typically used in\u00c2\u00a0dialog systems\u00c2\u00a0for various practical purposes including customer service or information acquisition. Some chatbots use sophisticated\u00c2\u00a0natural language processing\u00c2\u00a0systems, but many simpler ones scan for keywords within the input, then pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a\u00c2\u00a0database.<\/p>\n
The term “ChatterBot” was originally coined by\u00c2\u00a0Michael Mauldin\u00c2\u00a0(creator of the first\u00c2\u00a0Verbot, Julia) in 1994 to describe these conversational programs.\u00c2\u00a0Today, most chatbots are accessed via\u00c2\u00a0virtual assistants\u00c2\u00a0such as\u00c2\u00a0Google Assistant\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Amazon Alexa, via\u00c2\u00a0messaging apps\u00c2\u00a0such as\u00c2\u00a0Facebook Messenger\u00c2\u00a0or\u00c2\u00a0WeChat, or via individual organizations’ apps and websites.\u00c2\u00a0Chatbots can be classified into usage categories that include\u00c2\u00a0conversational commerce\u00c2\u00a0(e-commerce\u00c2\u00a0via chat),\u00c2\u00a0education,\u00c2\u00a0entertainment,\u00c2\u00a0finance,\u00c2\u00a0health,\u00c2\u00a0news, and\u00c2\u00a0productivity.<\/p>\n
Beyond chatbots,\u00c2\u00a0Conversational AI\u00c2\u00a0refers to the use of messaging apps, speech-based assistants and chatbots to automate communication and create personalized customer experiences at scale.<\/p>\n
Many companies’ chatbots run on\u00c2\u00a0messaging apps\u00c2\u00a0or simply via SMS. They are used for\u00c2\u00a0B2C\u00c2\u00a0customer service, sales and marketing.<\/p>\n
In 2016, Facebook Messenger allowed developers to place chatbots on their platform. There were 30,000 bots created for Messenger in the first six months, rising to 100,000 by September 2017.<\/p>\n
Since September 2017, this has also been as part of a pilot program on WhatsApp. Airlines\u00c2\u00a0KLM\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Aerom\u00c3\u00a9xico\u00c2\u00a0both announced their participation in the testing;\u00c2\u00a0both airlines had previously launched customer services on the\u00c2\u00a0Facebook Messenger\u00c2\u00a0platform.<\/p>\n
The bots usually appear as one of the user’s contacts, but can sometimes act as participants in a group chat.<\/p>\n
Many banks, insurers, media companies, e-commerce companies, airlines, hotel chains, retailers, health care providers, government entities and restaurant chains have used chatbots to answer simple questions, increase\u00c2\u00a0customer engagement,\u00c2\u00a0for promotion, and to offer additional ways to order from them.<\/p>\n
Previous generations of chatbots were present on company websites, e.g. Ask Jenn from\u00c2\u00a0Alaska Airlines\u00c2\u00a0which debuted in 2008\u00c2\u00a0or Expedia’s virtual customer service agent which launched in 2011.\u00c2\u00a0The newer generation of chatbots includes IBM Watson-powered “Rocky”, introduced in February 2017 by the\u00c2\u00a0New York City-based\u00c2\u00a0e-commerce\u00c2\u00a0company Rare Carat to provide information to prospective diamond buyers.<\/p>\n
Used by marketers to script sequences of messages, very similar to an Autoresponder sequence. Such sequences can be triggered by user opt-in or the use of keywords within user interactions. After a trigger occurs a sequence of messages is delivered until the next anticipated user response. Each user response is used in the decision tree to help the chatbot navigate the response sequences to deliver the correct response message.<\/p>\n
Other companies explore ways they can use chatbots internally, for example for Customer Support, Human Resources, or even in\u00c2\u00a0Internet-of-Things\u00c2\u00a0(IoT) projects.\u00c2\u00a0Overstock.com, for one, has reportedly launched a chatbot named Mila to automate certain simple yet time-consuming processes when requesting for a sick leave.\u00c2\u00a0Other large companies such as\u00c2\u00a0Lloyds Banking Group,\u00c2\u00a0Royal Bank of Scotland,\u00c2\u00a0Renault\u00c2\u00a0and\u00c2\u00a0Citro\u00c3\u00abn\u00c2\u00a0are now using automated online assistants instead of\u00c2\u00a0call centres\u00c2\u00a0with humans to provide a first point of contact. A SaaS chatbot business ecosystem has been steadily growing since the\u00c2\u00a0F8\u00c2\u00a0Conference when Facebook’s\u00c2\u00a0Mark Zuckerberg\u00c2\u00a0unveiled that Messenger would allow chatbots into the app.\u00c2\u00a0In large companies, like in hospitals and aviation organizations, IT architects are designing reference architectures for Intelligent Chatbots that are used to unlock and share knowledge and experience in the organization more efficiently, and reduce the errors in answers from expert service desks significantly.\u00c2\u00a0These Intelligent Chatbots make use of all kinds of artificial intelligence like image moderation and\u00c2\u00a0natural language understanding\u00c2\u00a0(NLU),\u00c2\u00a0natural language generation\u00c2\u00a0(NLG), machine learning and deep learning.<\/p>\n
Many high-tech banking organizations are looking to integrate automated AI-based solutions such as chatbots into their customer service in order to provide faster and cheaper assistance to their clients who are becoming increasingly comfortable with technology. In particular, chatbots can efficiently conduct a dialogue, usually replacing other communication tools such as email, phone, or\u00c2\u00a0SMS. In banking, their major application is related to quick customer service answering common requests, as well as transactional support.<\/p>\n
Several studies report significant reduction in the cost of customer services, expected to lead to billions of dollars of economic savings in the next 10 years.\u00c2\u00a0In 2019,\u00c2\u00a0Gartner\u00c2\u00a0predicted that by 2021, 15% of all customer service interactions globally will be handled completely by AI.\u00c2\u00a0A study by Juniper Research in 2019 estimates retail sales resulting from chatbot-based interactions will reach $112 billion by 2023.<\/p>\n
Chatbots are increasingly present in businesses and often are used to automate tasks that do not require skill-based talents. With customer service taking place via messaging apps as well as phone calls, there are growing numbers of use-cases where chatbot deployment gives organisations a clear return on investment. Call centre workers may be particularly at risk from AI-driven chatbots.<\/p>\n
The above is a brief about Chatbots. Watch this space for more updates on the latest trends in Technology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A\u00c2\u00a0chatbot\u00c2\u00a0is a piece of\u00c2\u00a0software\u00c2\u00a0that conducts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1849,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[401,964,7],"tags":[402,965,18],"class_list":["post-1847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chatbot","category-dialog-systems","category-techtrends","tag-chatbot","tag-dialog-systems","tag-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1847"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1848,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1847\/revisions\/1848"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1847"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1847"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.amt.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1847"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}