Advantages
- Instant messaging platforms, such as Facebook and WeChat, support chatbots and they can entertain users who are looking to communicate with their favorite artists among others. This allows individual users and businesses to reach more of their fans and to automate some of the messages
- Some food companies have their own chatbot technologies, allowing customers to order their meals easily and without interacting with a human counterpart. Efficiency increases along with customer satisfaction
- Chatbots can also provide customer support for simple issues that customers of specific companies might have. This gives businesses an efficiency boost, while reducing costs
- This technology has implications in the education sector, as some chatbots are able to issue answers to students that encounter difficulties in solving their homework, while some companies integrate them into toys in order to educate children
- Chatbots are always on and online, so they are available to users at all times
Disadvantages
- Chatbots can be used by marketing companies to spam users with advertising. They can also be used on instant messaging platforms, while others are designed to trick people into handing out their personal details as well as financial information to a third-party
- Artificial intelligence chatbots learn from communicating with other people and this can have undesired results if users choose to send offensive messages to the bot. An example is Microsoft’s Tay, who started tweeting inflammatory remarks on Twitter less than a day after going online
Limitations
- While chatbots have an easy time understanding simple tasks, they will have a hard time completing complex tasks or they might not even complete them at all
- For a full customer experience, businesses still have to involve a human, as chatbots are simply the first step of a relationship between a customer and a business
Components
- Connector / API interface
- Natural Language Processor (NLP)
- Context Manager
- Session Manager
- Bot Manager
- Human chat integrator
- Machine Learning Module
- Voice support module
- Reporting engine
Development tools
- Microsoft Bot Framework
- Chattypeople
- MEOKAY
- IBM Watson
- Smooch
- API.ai
- Botsify
- Beep Boop
- Chatfuel
- Facebook Bot Engine / Wit.AI
- Aspect CXP and Aspect NLU
- BotKit
- FlowXO
- GRAKN.AI
