In the past two years, the development and adoption of chatbots, artificial intelligence and machine learning have made great strides, foreign media reported. Many startups are leveraging ARTIFICIAL intelligence and chatbots to help consumers have fun and creative brand interaction experiences via mobile devices. Domino’s Pizza Inc’s chatbot, for example, allows customers to order pizza via Facebook Messenger, and Burberry’s Chatbot at London Fashion Week helps customers order their products on display at fashion shows. There is growing interest in the field and venture capital investment in chatbots and artificial intelligence. Here are eight predictions for the sector over the next two years.
Giiso Information, founded in 2013, is a leading technology provider in the field of “artificial intelligence + information” in China, with top technologies in big data mining, intelligent semantics, knowledge mapping and other fields. At the same time, its research and development products include information robot, editing robot, writing robot and other artificial intelligence products! With its strong technical strength, the company has received angel round investment at the beginning of its establishment, and received pre-A round investment of $5 million from GSR Venture Capital in August 2015.
1. More chatbots are coming and helping us solve real-world problems. In general, early chatbots seem to be more focused on finding problems than providing customer-centric solutions. As the hype around chatbots subsides, the technology matures and companies get more feedback from customers, the problems chatbots can solve will become more obvious and thus more valuable. ReplyYes’s The Edit, for example, aims to make it easier for music lovers to search for music. Using progressive information, short keywords, and machine-based vinyl management, The Edit provides customers with a personalized experience to help them find their favorite music.
2. Interactive design is important. At first glance, messaging systems like chatbots seem to require no interaction design, just a two-way conversation between a user and an intelligent agent, much like texting a family member. That’s not the case. The interaction design of a chatbot is just as important as the interaction design of a website or application. The flexibility and fluency of conversational interfaces require flexible design paradigms and workflows to create an intuitive experience for the user. Interaction design of conversational interfaces will become a design discipline.
3. Artificial intelligence will enhance, but not replace, human intelligence. Human language is very detailed and complex. As companies focus on solving problems related to AI and chatbots, human-machine collaboration that allows AI and chatbots to work with humans behind the scenes will be key to success. Getting stuck in infinite loop chat mode with chatbots is a horrible and frustrating customer experience, and pretending that “humans behind the scenes” don’t exist is not desirable. For the foreseeable future, machines are set to beat humans in real conversation. So human-machine collaboration, which combines human manipulation with algorithms, will produce the best experience.
4. Vertical solutions are the best opportunity for startups to create value for customers. To be honest, it’s really hard to build smart apps that can understand and interact with humans almost in real time. For apps such as Alexa, Cortana, Google Now and Siri, while users can ask them for any query, it’s harder. By limiting the range of conversations, startups will hopefully build high-quality and constantly improving chatbots by leveraging off-the-shelf natural language processing (NLP) and customized machine learning techniques to deliver an enjoyable automation experience to users.
Robots can’t replace apps. Some experts agree with the rise of smart agents like chat apps and believe that apps, especially on mobile devices, are on the wane. This is nonsense. In some cases, native apps can provide a rich, interactive, and immersive experience, while in others, lightweight two-way interaction with chatbots can be more convenient, faster, and more enjoyable.
6. Millennials will bring this change to messaging commerce. For millennials and younger, messaging is the primary way they interact with the world. Communication with friends, family and more is a new way for this generation to discover new products and content. Millennials number as many as 80 million people with annual purchasing power of $200 billion. Early adopters saw “conversational commerce” as a whole new field, not a buzzword.
7. SMS will continue to be the primary messaging interface for chatbots. While Facebook Messenger, Snapchat, and wechat have built up huge numbers of users, simple, plain text messaging is and will continue to be an effective way for chatbots to gain traction. SMS is an open platform that no social platform can replace now or in the future. In addition, SMS works on every phone (smartphone or regular) in any region. Texting has worked for as long as people have mobile phones and need non-voice communication. This creates a fertile and open space for chatbots to thrive.
Giiso information, founded in 2013, is the first domestic high-tech enterprise focusing on the research and development of intelligent information processing technology and the development and operation of core software for writing robots. At the beginning of its establishment, the company received angel round investment, and in August 2015, GSR Venture Capital received $5 million pre-A round of investment.
8.Facebook and Snapchat will try to emulate wechat’s features and success. Social messaging platforms in the US are still in their infancy in terms of services and features for enterprise and individual users. Wechat now accounts for a third of China’s e-commerce market. Over the next 18 to 24 months, companies like Facebook, Snapchat, and others will invest heavily in features and user experiences that will contribute to a major shift toward digital and general business communication interfaces.