Chatbot : A beginner's perspective !


What is a Chatbot ?
A chatbot (also known as a talkbot, chatterbot, Bot, IM bot, interactive agent, or Artificial Conversational Entity) is a computer program which conducts a conversation via auditory or textual methods.[1] Such programs are often designed to convincingly simulate how a human would behave as a conversational partner, thereby passing the Turing test. Chatbots are typically used in dialog systems for various practical purposes including customer service or information acquisition. Some chatterbots use sophisticated natural language processing systems, but many simpler systems scan for keywords within the input, then pull a reply with the most matching keywords, or the most similar wording pattern, from a database.
A chatbot is a service, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence, that you interact with via a chat interface. The service could be any number of things, ranging from functional to fun, and it could live in any major chat product (Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Text Messages,etc.).

Examples of Chatbots:
Weather bot. Get the weather whenever you ask.
Grocery bot. Help me pick out and order groceries for the week.
News bot. Ask it to tell you when ever something interesting happens.
Life advice bot. I’ll tell it my problems and it helps me think of solutions.
Personal finance bot. It helps me manage my money better.
Scheduling bot. Get me a meeting with someone on the Messenger team at Facebook.
A bot that’s your friend. In China there is a bot called Xiaoice, built by Microsoft, that over 20 million people talk to.

How Chatbots Work ?

There are two types of chatbots, one functions based on a set of rules, and the other more advanced version uses machine learning.What does this mean?
·         Chatbot that functions based on rules:
o   This bot is very very limited. It can only respond to very specific commands. If you say the wrong thing, it doesn’t know what you mean.
o   This bot is only as smart as it is programmed to be.
·         Chatbot that functions using machine learning:
o   This bot has an artificial brain AKA artificial intelligence. You don’t have to be ridiculously specific when you are talking to it. It understands language, not just commands.
o   This bot continuously gets smarter as it learns from conversations it has with people.


Industry : Trends & Growth :The four top messaging apps surpassed the top four social networks in terms of global monthly active users in 2015, and they continue to grow. The more activity messaging apps receive from users, the greater the opportunity for chatbots to facilitate usage of messaging apps.


In a survey by LivePerson, which included 5,000 consumers from six countries, 33% of consumers rated a positive perception of chatbots, compared to the 19% of participants that rated a negative perception. The remaining 48% were indifferent as long as their issue was resolved.
Some of AI and machine learning’s biggest advancements in recent years have been in perception and cognition. Voice recognition still has a way to go but Apple, Amazon, and Google have made leaps and bounds on advancements in voice recognition with Siri, Alexa and Google Assistant, respectively.
According to a study by Stanford computer scientist James Landay, speech recognition is on average three times as fastas typing on a cell phone, and the error rate has dropped 3.6%. Other improvements such as image recognition have also had reduced error rates.

Ecosystem & Landscape :
The chatbot ecosystem is quickly expanding despite the relatively robust ecosystem that currently exists. The ecosystem of the underlying technology and platforms for chatbots include deployment channels, third-party chatbots, companies that provide the technology for building chatbots, and native bots.

Deployment channels such as messaging apps, cloud networks, SMS, and email clients are where chatbots live and interact with users.
Third-party chatbots are brands and businesses that a customer may use to, for example, order an Uber through Facebook Messenger.
Bot building companies are typically third-party companies that employ AI technology to help businesses deploy their own chatbot across a platform.
Native bots are built by the platform or app in which they are operating (for example, Apple’s Siri or Google Assistant).

More and more major companies continue to announce their support for chatbots within their own business, such as LinkedIn, Starbucks, British Airways, and eBay. The key players within the chatbot industry, such as Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Telegram, have been investing in the development of chatbot technologies for years and continue to work on major bot projects.
The rise of chatbot usage has launched an abundant amount of startup tech following in their footsteps in a variety of industries.
 Some chatbot startups such as Kasisto, Pypestream, and Automat.ai, are strong in funding and have the potential to revolutionize the industry.


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