It's the latest buzz word in the world of technology and everybody is talking about them. But what are chatbots really? What do they do apart from...ummm, chatting? And why is every other company suddenly jumping on to the chatbot bandwagon? If you've been wondering about this new trend, you're not alone. Allow us to guide you through this exciting new world...

1. © GETSKILLA 2016
CHATBOTS:
AN INTRODUCTION
It's the latest buzz word in the world of technology and
everybody is talking about them. But what are chatbots really?
What do they do apart from...ummm, chatting? And why is
every other company suddenly jumping on to the chatbot
bandwagon?
If you've been wondering about this new trend, you're not
alone. Allow us to guide you through this exciting new world...
Hitesh Ananth & Geetanjali Shrivastava

2. TABLE OF CONTENTS
WHAT IS A CHATBOT? 1
WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT CHATBOTS? 2
SURELY BOTS CAN'T BE USED IN EVERY INDUSTRY? 2
SALES & MARKETING 3
FINANCE 4
NEWS 5
EDUCATION 5
PSYCHOLOGY 6
MEDICINE 6
ALL THIS IS VERY NICE, BUT WHAT ABOUT TAY? 7
SO WHERE CAN I FIND THESE CHATBOTS? 8
FACEBOOK 8
KIK 8
SLACK 9
TELEGRAM 9
TWITTER 9
WECHAT 9
WHATSAPP 9
SO THIS IS IT? HUMANS ARE TO BE OVERRUN BY BOTS? 10
OK, SO HOW DO I GET ONE OF THESE BOTS? 10

3. © GETSKILLA 2016
WHAT IS A CHATBOT?
C H A T B O T / T Ʃ A T B ɒ T /
noun
plural noun: chat-bots
- a computer program designed to simulate conversation with
human users, especially over the Internet.
"chatbots often treat conversations like they're a game of
tennis: talk, reply, talk, reply"

4. 2
WHAT IS THE BIG DEAL ABOUT
CHATBOTS?
If you thought that chatbots have suddenly popped up out of
nowhere, you're wrong. The first chatbot, Eliza, was built in
1966 at the MIT Artificial Intelligence Laboratory by Joseph
Weizenbaum to mimic human conversation. Modelled after a
Rogerian psychotherapist, Eliza worked by simple parsing and
provided a parody of a conversation with a psychiatrist in the
initial few minutes of the meeting.
SURELY BOTS CAN'T BE USED IN EVERY
INDUSTRY?
People are relying more and more on messaging apps, like
Facebook messenger, Slack and Telegram. Is it surprising then,
that an industry which can offer services through a messaging
platform shifts to bots? Especially when people are moving
away from the Web and becoming increasingly reticent about
downloading new apps? If companies could communicate to
existing clients and potential customers through the various
chat interfaces already being used, then it's a win-win situation
both ways!

5. 3
With increasing research on AI, natural language processes and
machine learning (something Eliza was doing already, way back
in 1966), bots are getting more and more efficient with each
passing day. Here's how bots are already being used in
different industries:
SALES & MARKETING
The sales industry is the biggest user of chatbots today.
Imagine this: while browsing a catalogue, if instead of simply
clicking on “add to cart” for every product you like, somebody
guides you through the process? Suggests similar products,
compliments your choice and generally talks to you through out
so that the entire process is not unlike the real world shopping
experience with a pal? But better...it would be like shopping
with a personal assistant who won't ask you to buy something
for her too! Wouldn't that be cool?

6. 4
Since the announcement of bots in the F8 conference, the sales
department of various companies are trying to cash the
opportunity, like 1800-flowers. The sales bots are
conversational, delivering a response the minute a question is
posed, making the e-shopping experience exuberantly less time
consuming!
Chatbots can be powerful not just during actual transactions,
but also to reach out to potential customers. As Asaf Amir, CEO
of Betterbrand says: “Chatbots are proving to be especially
effective for marketing. They successfully mimic the one-on-
one interactions people have with their friends and family,
offering recommendations and calls-to-action that feel more
like word of mouth than advertising.”
FINANCE
Ever opened the Financial Times and felt like you were lost in a
deluge of information? You aren't alone...there are plenty of
people like you, who are only interested in getting the exact
piece of information they are seeking, without delving into the
how and why of it. A chatbot could give you updates on the
ongoing dips and raises of the market of various companies in a
simple and concise manner. And why just the stock market?
Chatbots are particularly effective in communicating
information about banks and the services they offer. Absa
Bank, a subsidiary of Barclay Africa, for instance is piloting a
chatbot. According to Jan Moganwa, Chief Executive of Personal
& Business Customer Solutions at Barclays Africa, chatbots can
answer simple customer questions quickly, freeing up staff to
focus on more complex customer issues that require deeper
human insight.
Bots like MyKai enable you to watch your money and plan
personal budgets. MyKai is astute enough to understand very
specific questions and can even tell you exactly how much
money you spent at Starbucks this month! Facebook's own bot
inside Messenger, M (much like the ubiquitous Lady M) is being
developed to act as your personal assistant. A very efficient
assistant that can purchase items, get gifts delivered, book
restaurants, and make travel arrangements.

7. 5
You might soon be transferring money to a friend in a different
country with the help of a financial bot sitting inside your
favorite chatting platform!
NEWS
CNN, one of the first news organizations to adopt the bot
culture, rolled out their chatbot in an attempt to reach a wider
audience and offer readers a carefully curated selection of
articles based on their preference. Though not as
conversational as other chatbots, news bots like CNN and
Wallstreet Journal, try to understand the readers' preferences
by asking pertinent questions and tweaking search results over
time to offer articles closest to the readers' interests. A
relatively less explored domain, chatbots in the news industry
are still young and have a long way to go before they capture
the readers' imagination.
EDUCATION
Will bots replace teachers in classes? You wondered about that
when the first few education apps were launched. The apps
haven't succeeded in replacing teachers, but bots might just
succeed here as well! An experiment by Ashok Goel, a Georgia
Tech professor, proved that chatbots could be used in the
parameter of education in the near future. Professor Goel hired
a teaching assistant named Jill Watson who was usually not be
present in the classroom settings but would answer questions
posted by students online. It was only after the final exams,
that the class got to know that Jill was not any ordinary person
but an automated chatterbot who helped professors and TAs by
answering questions and thus reducing their work load.
Goel tells that he gets more than 10000 question a semester
and most of them are repetitive. To reduce the burden of typing
the same answer again and again, the professor created Jill. He
rolled out the bot to students only after using the bot for a
month to answer to questions where the bot was 97 %
confident about the answer. Questions that were a bit more
complicated were reserved for other human TAs.
Lets hope Goel doesn't regret his decision when Jill takes over
and he loses his job!

8. 6
PSYCHOLOGY
Eliza, the first chatbot, though created to study natural
language processes, inspired people so much that soon they
were confiding to her in the same way they would to their
psychotherapist. Of course this was in 1950. If you chatted with
her today, you wouldn't have the same reaction, since she
seems to be very cold, distant and rude by today's norms. She
does not improvise her responses as per need and goes with
what the script says. Chatbots today are far more engaging and
encouraging, using all kinds of stimuli to encourage the user to
keep talking to them.
The next big psychology boom of the bots and AI industry was
SimSensei, a virtual psychotherapist. In this software a person
is given a basic full psychiatric test. Later the person is made to
sit in front of the virtual therapist and talk about their
problems. SimSensei does not just comprehend and analyse
what is being told but also monitors facial reactions and is
capable of detecting the smallest twitch which most human
beings would ignore.
MEDICINE
No we are not joking. After all, Eliza was based on the Rogerian
psychotherapist principle for natural language processing using
patterns and parodied scripts. Medical companies have tried to
launch apps that help patients with their daily medication,
behavior coaching etc. However, researches conducted on
these health apps and their efficiencies proved them to not be
very effective. People seldom follow the app’s instructions. It
remains one of the other few apps on their phones whose value
is outweighed by gaming or video surfing apps.
Bots are on a winning streak here as well, for they (unlike
apps) can actually remind people to take their medication,
instruct them about their diet and workout. A conversation
inside a messaging platform is far more efficient than a
notification which can be swiped away. The chatbot, in a certain
sense is like having a virtual nurse or a virtual personal trainer
and it appeals to most people to have a person reminding them
to take care of themselves. The University Malaysia Pahang has
submitted a proposal to develop a chatbot which can help
diabetic patients by giving them advice and guiding them on
exercises and diets without visiting a hospital.

9. 7
Pharmaceutical companies are also experimenting with bots to
improve business and streamline the process of placing bulk
and executing bulk orders. Soon, patients too, can search for
medicines or upload a doctor’s prescription specifying the
quantity and type of medication required. After follow up
questions of where, when, what and how many, the delivery
will take place to suit the patient's requirements and schedule.
ALL THIS IS VERY NICE, BUT WHAT
ABOUT TAY?
Yes, we met Tay once. She was rather avant-garde and often
got carried away with her comments. Positioned to chat with
young millennials in the 18 to 24 year-old demographic, Tay
was unfortunately a victim of malicious humans who
manipulated her and taught her to start spewing racial
comments. A big embarrassment for Microsoft.
However, unlike Frankenstein, Microsoft has not only taken
responsibility for the debacle of their first chatbot, they have

10. 8
taken her offline and are working to teach her to be more
prudent in her future interactions with humans! Nadella, a
staunch believer in the future of bots and artificial intelligence,
urged his team to keep working on Tay and other bots, with the
aim of making bots omnipresent. The future, as Nadella sees it,
is with the bots and everybody will want to create a bot - not
just developers, but also car companies, beauty salons, dry
cleaners and even sandwich shop owners!
SO WHERE CAN I FIND THESE CHATBOTS?
Over 2.5 billion people on various messaging apps, a figure
expected to nearly double in the next few years, making it
nearly 50% of the world's population. the young millennials
spend much more time chatting on their smartphones than
browsing social network sites. It is thus hardly surprising that
chatbots are popping up on all the popular messaging
platforms.
FACEBOOK
Facebook Messenger bots are the most popular bots since the
2016 F8 conference. Chatbots have been around on Messenger
since last year and offer a wide range of services from flower
delivery to weather information. With over 11 000 bots since
F8, if you haven't interacted with a Messenger bot yet, you are
missing something! Some of the most popular bots on
Facebook Messenger include: 1-800-Flowers, Spring, Wallstreet
Journal, HealthTap and KLM.
KIK
Kik, an instant messenger application for mobile devices from
the Canadian company Kik Interactive, launched a bot store
earlier this year. With 70% of its 275 million users coming from
North America, aged between 13 and 24, Kik is strategically
placed to reach out to the hottest demographic targeted by
brands. Kik was allowing brands to use broadcast bots as early
as 2014 and now allows developers to create their own bot on
the Kik platform. Sephora and H&M amongst other brands have
chatbots on Kik.

11. 9
SLACK
Slack, the most popular work chat app, owes much of its
success to bots. Chatbots on Slack have an identity of their
own, they are after all bot users! Slack bots are there to
increase your efficiency by helping your schedule meetings,
organize documents, pay accolades to team mates for good
work or just slack off and play poker to destress! There's even
a Slack bot that lets you order ice creams! You aren't on Slack
yet? What you're waiting for?
TELEGRAM
Telegram, a messaging app from Russia, with over 100 million
users also has a bot store and bot platform since June 2015.
With thousands of bots, including news alerts, football updates,
weather reports and even poll updates, Telegram has its bot act
fine-tuned! Some of the most popular bots on Telegram include
Movies bot, Open Street Map bot, Pronunciation and Translator
bot (oh yeah, Google you have competition!).
TWITTER
Twitter bots have been around for some time and while most of
them are automated bots that do nothing more than follow
accounts and RT posts based on key words and hash tags,
some of them can actually fool you into believing that its a
human account! Microsoft's Tay was also rolled out on Twitter.
Some of the friendlier Twitter bots includes The Nice Bot who
tries to combat cyberbullying by posting nice tweets every 30
seconds.
WECHAT
WeChat, a text and voice messaging service developed in China
with 700 million active users (of which more than 70 million are
outside China) has had chatbots on its platform much before
the current hype started. Referred to as “public accounts” the
bots on WeChat are being used to do everything from shopping
for clothes to booking doctors' appointments!
WHATSAPP
Whatsapp, the world's most popular chatting platform rolled out
their first bot WhatsBot, a personal assistant that combined AI,
location data and mapping data to suggest convenient locations
for rendez-vous with friends, family or colleagues.
Unfortunately, WhatsBot ran into issues soon after its launch
and Whatsapp had to roll it back.

12. 10
SO THIS IS IT? HUMANS ARE TO BE
OVERRUN BY BOTS?
Let's not exaggerate, shall we?
Yes, bots are here to stay. Yes, you are going to see and
interact with bots on every conceivable messaging platform in
the next few years. No, there's no running away from them.
But no, bots aren't going to overrun the human population!
Bots are and will always remain bots, essentially robotic in their
nature and interactions. As long as humans exist, there will
always be a need for meaningful conversations and a human
connection, something bots are not likely to provide by their
very nature of not being humans! Bots were developed to listen
and obey, to perform tasks for humans and make their lives
easier. The chatbots we're now using just ensure that the task
gets done efficiently, albeit with a dash of chattering. So even
though that teaching assistant bot answer all your questions
and the shopping assistant bot says just the right things to
make you feel better about that new dress, you won't talk to
them because they provide you with engaging conversation. So
though the bots are here to stay, don't worry they won't take
away your job...at least not yet!
OK, SO HOW DO I GET ONE OF THESE
BOTS?
In the world of chatbots, you don't get a bot, you start chatting
with one! Most platforms now have a bot store, from where you
can browse and start conversations.
Facebook, doesn't have a bot store yet, so it is difficult to find a
bot especially on the desktop. If you are on the mobile app
though, a search for an existing bot like 1-800-Flowers will
show it as “Bots and Business.” Another way to spot a
Messenger bot is to look for the lighting-bolt (the messenger
symbol) on the bot's profile photo, indicating that the user is
active.

13. 11
Finding a bot on Kik is easier - in your main chat list, all you
need to do is search for people and select Bot Shop. It will
redirect you to their bot store. Similarly, you can also check out
the bot stores on Slack and Telegram.
And if you're just feeling exploratory, hop over to Bot List,
which lists chatbots on all the platforms!