The future of Messaging Bots and Chat for Business

Video of the webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6SsaMH4C5Uo

The business world is abuzz with chat and chat bots. Facebook Messenger and autonomous messaging bots are changing how businesses communicate. We have to get a handle on messaging bots and chat for business now, and there is no better person to help guide us than Chris Messina.

In this exclusive webinar Chris will discuss his vision of messaging and conversational commerce. Chris is a leading innovator in the messaging space. His personal messaging bot Messina Bot and discussions on bots, messaging, and conversational commerce are paving new ways for the future of business.

Chris Messina is a long-time tech thought leader and is credited as the inventor of the hashtag. Chris' current passion "conversational commerce" challenges our thinking of how we will be doing business in the future.

https://www.infobip.com/en/resources/webinars/chris-messina-on-the-future-of-messaging-bots-and-chat-for-business/

Transcript

1. The future of messaging bots 
 & chat for business @ChrisMessina Infobip Webinar March 22, 2017
2. Known for Inventing the hashtag, product hunts Companies Uber; Google; Mozilla Skills UX & product design, marketing, social media, developer relations, platform strategy
3. Appeared in Wall Street Journal, New York Times, Washington Post, The Information, Backchannel, Business Insider, Wired Speaking MobileBeat, SXSW, SapientRazorfish, Future Decoded, Slush, APIDays
4. Two things: Do ask questions! ‛ Take the quick poll!
5. Should you build a bot?
7. 2016: “The Year of Conversational Commerce”
8. “Utilizing chat, messaging, or other natural language interfaces (i.e. voice) to interact with people, brands, or services and bots that heretofore have had no real place in the bidirectional, asynchronous messaging context.”
9. “Evolving from simple social conversations to business-related conversations.” —Mary Meeker, KPCB
11. Worldwide Device Shipments Source: Gartner, Worldwide Devices Shipments per Year by Device Type 2,000M 1,750M 1,500M 1,250M 1,000M 750M 500M 0 2006 2011 2015 2007 2008 2010 2012 2013 2014 2016 250M 2009 Credit: LukeW Design 2006 239M PCs 68M Smartphones & Tablets 2016 269M PCs 1,729M Smartphones & Tablets
12. Messaging is the killer mobile app Source: companies, BI Intelligence Monthly active users for the top four social networks and messaging apps Big 4 social networking apps Big 4 messaging apps MILLIONS 3,500 3,000 2,500 2,000 1,500 1,000 500 0 Q4 '11 Q1 Q1 Q1 Q1 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q2 Q3 Q4 Q2 Q3
13. Messenger was the most downloaded app in 2016 #1 80% of teenagers are using Messenger as either their first or second means of communication 88% of Millennials report that they prefer chatting over the web or social media to talk to businesses
14. We’re #trending! Source: ubisend Ltd 2016 Mobile Messaging Report 63.9% of consumers agree with the statement “Businesses should be available and contactable via messaging applications” 49.4% of consumers would rather use a messaging app than a phone call to communicate with a business
15. How did we get here?
17. Source: Flickr
18. Source: cpu-galaxy.at
21. Steve Jobs 2007
30. This one works This one doesn’t
31. Entertainment iPod Communication Phone Apps iOS + + + +
32. Entertainment iPod Communication Phone Apps iOS + + + + + ?
33. Credit: AP
35. Number of monthly active Facebook users © Statista 2016
36. The World Online
37. Sources: cpu-galaxy.at; Facebook Devices; Amazon
41. • Massive UX improvements in tech products • Friction and access costs to the internet • Speed of computing • People online (*demise of “offline”) • Spread of technology into all facets of our day • Casual, familiar relationship with technology • AI assistants being invited into our lives • Children as leading indicators of “ normal” Macro trends ∴ new assumptions
42. No Such Thing as Offline By Justin Barber Illustrations by Sehee Lee design.google.com/articles/digital-natives
43. —Satya Nadella, Microsoft “Bots are the new apps.”
44. Build the intelligent cloud platform Create more personal computing Reinvent productivity & business processes Conversations as a Platform
45. Some terms
46. Some terms AI when a machine mimics “cognitive” functions Neural Network a programming paradigm inspired by biology that enables computers to learn from observational data Machine Learning ability to “learn” without explicit programming Deep Learning algorithms that learn complicated concepts by building them out of simpler ones NLP/NLU/NLG interaction between computers and humans using (natural) languages
47. Some terms Bot an autonomous program on a network Chatbot a bot that uses human language to communicate Skill a capability that an AI Assistant learns or obtains AI Assistant a chatbot that performs tasks or services for an individual
48. Some terms Bot Platform a computing context that can be extended by third party bots Voice Platform a voice computing context that can be extended by third party bots
49. Categories of Facebook bots Brand promotes a commercial or corporate entity News/New Media provides timely and/ or topical content or media Customer Service access to help, feedback, and account assistance Commerce sells products or otherwise focuses on transactions
50. Categories of Slack bots Information Retrieval promotes a commercial or corporate entity Internal Operations provides timely and/ or topical content or media Workflow Automation access to help, feedback, and account assistance Customer Support sells products or otherwise focuses on transactions
51. • Immediacy: respond in < 10-30 seconds or else: frustrated users! • Operations: operators can have up to 3 concurrent chats w/o affecting performance • Always on: don’t recreate voicemail on messaging! • Forgetful: conventional chat sessions lose context — don’t do this! • Isolation: live chat is often disconnected from other contact points, confusing customers Challenges of conversational UI
52. • Immediacy: speed for the EOD Generation (everything on demand) • Authenticity: supports natural language, in your customer’s words • Two-way communication: 1:1 messaging • Hybridization: humans in the loop, fronted by bots • Continuous context: combine people + system knowledge for 360° view of customer (i.e. with sign in) • Frictionless onboarding: nothing to install; most users have messaging apps • UI consistency: people understand messaging; no new app UI to learn Benefits of conversational UI
53. The new platforms
54. + O ctober * 2016
55. Enterprise Consumer Customer Service
56. Independent platform builders: picks & shovels
57. Anatomy of a bot Persistent menu Text, emoji, stickers, images, audio, video, files Cards & Carousel Content action buttons Quick replies Keyboard suggested replies
59. The landscape
60. AI assistants
61. Chatbots huggingface.co zo.ai
62. Shopping
63. Onboarding m.me/snaptravel
64. News m.me/wsj m.me/cnn m.me/theguardian m.me/GetPrpl/
65. TV & Game m.me/PersonaSynthetics m.me/callofduty
66. and m.me/BudLight m.me/Dominos
67. Music m.me/Lazyset m.me/RecordBird
68. Art telegram.me/icon8bot telegram.me/prismabot
69. Celebrities garyveebot.com m.me/kevinhartbot m.me/869705063160306 m.me/christinamilian
70. Resources
71. refind.com/chrismessina?q=bots
72. producthunt.com/@chrismessina/collections/convcomm
73. Questions / Answers
75. Thank you. @chrismessina m.me/MessinaBot