A host of robots will be added to Facebook’s messenger app. At this year’s Facebook F8 Event for Developers which starts on 12 April, the company is greatly expected to announce a ‘bot store’ and hopes that the bots could completely replace apps or websites for the companies that sign up for them. This idea of using Facebook Messenger as a way of talking to businesses has been first introduced last year at a similar F8 developer conference.
The new bot tools are part of the new messenger features which might also include ‘secret chats’. Reports state that people can look at the products of a specific company by speaking to these artificial but intelligent chatbots without clicking through to an app to do that. People can order products or return them and bots will assist them in the process by talking to them. For instance, the automated customer service rep will explain to people the instructions of returning a product by sending back programmed replies.
Apart from customer service conversations, tools like push notifications from businesses or news organizations to inform people of the stock being back in market or breaking stories can also get included in this.
Facebook will let companies borrow their robot power to run their customer service as well because many companies cannot program such bots by themselves. Facebook is also trying to scheme a platform that will bring together the builders of chatbots and the companies that want to use them. According to TechCrunch, to ensure availability of these robots to other companies, Facebook is in the process of building tools that could help other companies build the bots.
Benazir Elahee Munni