Everyone is talking about chatbots, but they are still at a very early stage of their evolution. For the vision to become reality, a measure of added value is necessary.

When people mention the word “bot” today, most of them are thinking about social bots. These publish predetermined messages on social networks, create new ones by themselves, respond to keywords or automatically share content on related topics. They were heavily used during the recent US presidential election campaign. As exciting as this topic is, however, today I am focusing on another type of bot: the chatbot. Continue reading 

Will chatbots supersede apps and websites? A view into the future.

What is a chatbot? A chatbot is a service powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence (AI), which you interact with via a chat interface. An example: If you need new shoes, instead of going to the store and talking to the salesperson about what you want or scrolling through all shoes on a website, you would simply tell the chatbot what you want: your size and your preferred style. Then you would get returned the results as if you were in the store. Chatbots are supposedly huge because for the first time in history, messaging apps have surpassed social networks with over three billion active users per month (almost ½ of the world’s population). Continue reading