By Brent Csutoras
As an avid futurist and marketer who has watched the web, smartphones, and social media change the scope of the internet multiple times in the last decade, I’m always excited by the next wave of marketing and technology innovation carrying the potential to change the way we use the internet as a whole, says Brent Csutoras.
I have remained super excited about voice search, along with voice assistants and even augmented reality. But as exciting as these things are, they are still battling with technological elements that limit them from changing our everyday interaction with the internet.
Chatbots on the other hand, are a very well timed middle ground between automation, AI, and the changing use of the internet, in a way that could make it extremely effective in doing business online and ushering in some of the other future technological advancements we have all been waiting on.
“Gartner predicts that by 2020 people will have more conversations with chatbots than their spouse,” said Christi Olson, head of evangelism for search at Bing, as well as one of the world’s experts on chatbots, voice search, and voice assistants. “The chatbots of the future don’t just respond to questions. They talk. They think. They draw insights from knowledge graphs. They forge emotional relationships with customers.”
What Are Chatbots?
“Chatbots are software that send programmed messages to users in a conversational interface,” said Virginia Nussey, a highly respected chatbot marketer.
She further explains:
“It used to be that only software developers could create chatbots. But in the last year or so, visual drag-and-drop chatbot building platforms have opened the door for all manner of marketers and communications pros to use chatbots. Now it’s easy for anyone to send messages at massive scale through popular mobile chat apps.”
James Melvin, Head of Technology Innovation and Security at Rattlehub Digital, further explains:
“One should not look at a chatbot as a simple messaging service.
Chatbots today are designed to not only perform natural language understanding but are also able to perform cognitive service functions such as:
· Speech to Text
· Computer Vision
· Language Recognition and Translation
· Content Moderation
· Speaker Recognition
· Text Analytics
So How Are Marketers Using Chatbots?
The clearest use of chatbots right now is in customer service and online ordering, where it can automate (and in some cases solve) customer issues or complete orders without human interaction.
Take Dom, the ordering assistance chatbot created by Domino’s Pizza, for instance. Dom allows interaction through texting, voice, and even Facebook Messenger, allowing users an easy to use ordering experience through their mobile phones.
