In last few months, we have seen the word “chatbot” creating a lot of buzzes. You might have even heard Mr. Zuckerberg and Mr. Nadella speaking highly of it, this would have certainly made you think “Is it the next big thing?”. Before getting to the answer, let us understand what exactly the chatbot is all about. And, here you go: A chatbot is a simple form of artificial intelligence software, which has the ability to have a conversation with a human being as a lifelike manner. The bot’s ability to respond to a situation certainly depends on how intelligently the algorithm is written by a developer. A well-written algorithm in a chatbot will reduce the manual intervention to a greater extent in an application.

To have a better understanding of the chatbots, let us assume that you decide to order a pizza through a food ordering app. For doing so, you need to turn on to the app → add the type of pizza to your cart → enter your delivery address → make the payment → finally your order gets confirmed.

Now, let’s assume the same case with the help of chatbots. Here, you no longer need to undergo such a tedious process. Instead, you can place an order with a single type of a message. Yes, you heard it right, just write to a chatbot about your wish of having a pizza and it will automatically fill all your details like address (with the help of GPS), make payment and complete your order instantly.

Doesn’t it sound exciting?. I am sure it does.

In fact, with time you can expect the chatbot to remember your food preferences and see it use those details to order a complete personalized pizza for you. Yes, you can expect a hassle-free/ time-saving experience as all recurring task that makes you feel tiring are minimized.

Petro Domingos, the author of The Master Algorithm, recently said: “Artificial Intelligence is not so scary as it seems when it translates into artificial smartness.” As we have seen our human race evolving, so are these bots doing. With time they are expected to become more mature and proactive, right before our eyes, Thus, we can expect humans to strike an intelligent conversation with the robots.

There is no doubt about the potential of chatbots, as we could see Facebook announcing the main focus of the F8 conference 2016 would be “bots”. They said, “the major aim is to convert Facebook Messenger from a messaging app into a powerful business channel to improve the relationship with customers”.

Learn more on Kommunicate Chatbot

Thus chat bots make it a win-win situation for all, user, developer and marketer. Let me tell how:

• Developers will be able to create an intelligent conversational marketplace.
• Customers will have a fast and intelligent experience on a chat
• Marketers can draft effective strategies to engage and monetize customers to deliver meaningful experiences across all channels.

Some of the interesting chat bots being used worldwide are:

• Clipdis by Kik: a chatbot which can create interesting video mashups with a phrase.
• ImageBot by Telegram — send this bot a keyword and it’ll provide you with a relevant picture.
• PollBot by Telegram — add this one to group chats to create polls.

We understand these developments would open up a great opportunity for all real-time chat & messaging SDK’s (such as Applozic) as they would act like a smart assistant on mobile and website.

Also, for your reference :

Applozic, a software-as-a-Service for complete communication solution will soon have multiple types of chatbots. Think about any type of conversation 1-to-1, 1-to-many, group chat, context-based chat etc, you have it all at one place. We as a platform offer real-time chat and messaging within any application, along with it we provide cross-application communication, SMS and Email fallback support. On top of this, there with be a user-friendly Dashboard which has rich insights and analytics.

Originally published at www.applozic.com on June 14, 2016.