Chatbots – Love Them or Hate Them

There has been a rise in the use of chatbots in the recent past. Globally, about 40% of people who use the internet prefer interacting with chatbots. Most of the leading industries have adopted chatbots because they save time. According to experts, chatbots are expected to gain even more popularity in the future.

Significance of Chatbots

Since chatbots were introduced to the market, they have increased in popularity. They are now common in various industries and any organization looking for ways to improve service productivity or increase sales needs to have a chatbot. Typically, chatbots use artificial intelligence (AI) to communicate with users seeking answers to some recurring questions.

How Do Chatbots Operate?

In the past, chatbots were only text-based. They were made primarily to respond to a selected set of questions using pre-written answers. They only operated within an interactive FAQ. Though they did well with the predetermined queries and responses, they failed when the users presented more sophisticated and complex questions. 
Today’s Artificial Intelligent chatbots operate under Natural Language Understanding (NLU) to identify clients’ needs. After identifying, they further employ advanced AI software to determine what you are trying to accomplish.

The technology behind chatbot development relies on machine learning to establish a granular knowledge set of questions and answers that lean on user interactions. Such tech improves the ability of the bots to foreshadow the user’s needs precisely and offer a timely response.

For instance, if you ask the bot about tomorrow’s weather condition, a traditional digital assistant would offer a direct response such as “it will rain.” However, a modern Chatbot is more programmed. After telling you the specific day’s weather (rainy), it would further inquire if you may want to set the alarm or a reminder to adjust the day’s events.

Other use cases include:

·      Getting directions to a local restaurant
·      Getting responses to health-related questions and planning appointments
·      Getting general help from a particular brand
·      Scheduling a reminder for a specific task 

Industries That Use a chatbots

As chatbots soar in the market, the top industries have tapped into the technology to satisfy their clients.
a.    Entertainment- e.g., MonjiHunt chatbot game in Facebook messenger.
b.    Newsfeeds- e.g., CNN Bot
c.    Healthcare- a bot can work as your doctor. If you feel sick, your prescription is just a step away. Shoot a question to the bot and get the response in a minute. Health Tap is the most recent health Chatbot.
d.    Banking – e.g., the bank of America established Erica for its clients

Conclusion

Chatbots play a vital role in resource optimization, cost reduction, labour reduction, and service automation. Love them or Hate them for now, looks like they are here to stay.