Global Messaging Trends Chatbots

Grata.co September 2016Chat Shanghai | Global Messaging Trends
Global
Messaging
Trends
In search of
intelligence
Andrew Schorr
Founder @ Grata.co
Image Credit: Kathleen Wilson/Baltimore Academy of Illustration

Peak Messaging Hype
©REUTERS

We recently hit
Facebook F8 Developer Conference 12 April 2016

Suddenly
texting a
weather cat is
better than
opening a
weather app

vs.
Slack Tacobot
Tacobell.com
…and typing pico de gallo is
faster than a screen tap

Evidence everywhere of a hype cycle
Source: h)ps://betaworks.com/botcamp

It lasted about 10 days…

Since then, I’ve
been drawn back
to a chatbot once.
A chatbot promoted by
Facebook, representing
the White House, failing
both on and off script,
phishing for contact
information from within a
messaging app. Ugh.

But there must be something there,
with 11,000 bots at last count.
Source: h)ps://medium.com/@Deepoma>c/visual-‐chatbots-‐to-‐revolu>onize-‐interac>ons-‐1f8693e27639#.mb0yjyn9d

Venture Capital Funds
Retrieved from h)ps://www.cbinsights.com/blog/bot-‐startups-‐>meline/

Facebook F8 April 2016

$150M
$80M
Platform Funds
$50M
$100M
Source: h)p://venturebeat.com/2016/08/30/amazon-‐ibm-‐and-‐other-‐tech-‐giants-‐want-‐to-‐pay-‐you-‐to-‐create-‐bots/

I did a quick survey of
travel chatbots to see
how things are going.
It’s still easier to ﬁnd a
bad example than a
good one.
Travel should be easy
since it is a limited
domain: booking a ﬂight
or a hotel.
Image Credit: Sara Klementovic saraklem.com

Cheapﬂights stays on message
with a cheap bot.
No kidding, you actually have to type out the words “check in” and “check out”

Angel.ai does a better job.

Parsing my request on Angel.ai

But none of these are as easy as
AnyTravelWebsite.com
Pictured: skyscanner.com

h)p://investorplace.com/2016/07/pizza-‐hut-‐emoji-‐menu-‐yum-‐stock/#.V7XWe5P5iRt

I love this sub-headline.

So when is a chatbot useful?
Image Credit: Benjamin Jancewicz, zerﬂin.com/services/illustration

An Extensible Script
Chatbots that can
react appropriately
to multiple correct
answers are perfect
for language
learning.
Pictured
h)ps://blog.mondlylanguages.com/2016/08/25/mondly-‐chatbot-‐press-‐release/

Context Switching
Chatbots that can
interpret inputs in a
series can consolidate
complex tasks.
The Robot Lawyer has
helped void over 160,000
parking tickets worth over
$4,000,000. Now it’s
helping the homeless.
More
at
h)ps://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/aug/11/chatbot-‐lawyer-‐beat-‐parking-‐ﬁnes-‐helping-‐homeless-‐do-‐not-‐pay

Non-Textual Inputs
Whole Foods is on
to something, but
it’s still more
difﬁcult to ﬁnd the
eggplant emoji
than to type
“eggplant”.
Note: Be careful whom you text the eggplant emoji.

Image Credit: Alex Kazanas alexkazanas.com
What if I could
just point my
camera at any
item in the
supermarket?

Value
Effort
The golden equation
for chatbot utility.
More
at
h)ps://medium.com/art-‐marke>ng/the-‐hidden-‐homescreen-‐70c794ﬀ9ada#.91l3z7wzl

Visual Bots

Voice Chatbots
1
Voice message
to a WeChat
Ofﬁcial Account
2 Tap your itinerary from instant response
3
Select ticket
type and book

An always-on microphone in every
room of your house.
+
More
at
h)p://venturebeat.com/2016/08/30/sonos-‐is-‐puZng-‐amazons-‐alexa-‐voice-‐assistant-‐tech-‐inside-‐its-‐connected-‐speakers/

In summary, get excited about
Language
Voice

Vision
Intelligence

None of these are easy, so…

Most Likely to Succeed?

Messaging Channels
Acquired
21 Dec 2015

Facebook is the clear leader in
messaging channels globally

60 billion
messages/day
3x peak volume of SMS
+

Apple is opening up iMessage

Google makes
inroads on iOS
with the Gboard
in May 2016.
Microsoft
acquired Swiftkey
in February.
More
at
h)p://www.cnet.com/news/google-‐gives-‐iphones-‐and-‐ipads-‐slick-‐gboard-‐keyboard/

M
Assistant
Cortana
Siri

Virtual Assistants are all about
reducing inputs and effort.

Apple’s Siri is
opening up to
integrations
with launch of
Sirikit.
More
at
h)p://arstechnica.com/apple/2016/06/the-‐abili>es-‐and-‐limita>ons-‐of-‐sirikit-‐siris-‐olive-‐branch-‐to-‐other-‐apps/

OS

Search

AI

ML

NLP

The backend stack could be
the deciding factor
Google Research
NLP API
Cognitive Services
Bot Framework

“Apple is the NSA of AI.”
-Jerry Kaplan
Teaches the history of artiﬁcial
intelligence at Stanford
Despite missing search, Apple
has a powerful stack: controlling
the hardware, the operating
system, and having deﬁned the
virtual assistant with Siri.
Thanks
to
www.crunchbase.com
for
informa>on
on
acquisi>ons

More
at
h)ps://backchannel.com/an-‐exclusive-‐look-‐at-‐how-‐ai-‐and-‐machine-‐learning-‐work-‐at-‐apple-‐8dbc131932b#.aozc4dn52

Machine Learning
Acquired
5 Aug 2016
Speech Interface
Acquired
2 Oct 2015
Image Processing
Acquired
5 Oct 2015

“We think of this as each user
building their own Google.”
-Sundar Pichai
CEO, Google
at Google I/O May 2016
The shift to AI is perfectly
aligned with Google Research’s
activities and Google’s mission
to organize the world’s
information.
Image Recognition
Acquired
23 Oct 2014
Gesture
Recognition
Acquired
2 Oct 2013
Image Recognition
Acquired
6 July 2016
NLP
Acquired
23 Oct 2014
Machine Learning
Acquired
26 Jan 2014
Visual Translator
Acquired
16 May 2014

Keyboard AI
Acquired
2 Feb 2016
Don’t count Microsoft out.
The last peer-to-peer connections on
Skype are being removed to enable
connecting Azure Cognitive Services
to chats.
Virtual Assistant
Acquired
22 Aug 2016
3D Input
Processor
29 Oct 2010
More
at
h)p://www.theverge.com/2016/7/7/12111028/microsod-‐bot-‐framework-‐ar>ﬁcial-‐intelligence-‐satya-‐nadella-‐interview

"This idea of using conversation, using contextual information
about you, with your permission, to make you speedier and make
you feel like you’re in control, that’s the stuff we get really excited
about. A lot of our user experience work is around simpliﬁcation,
removing friction, and really showing the power of intelligence.".

Microsoft might
have had some very
public stumbles...

…but the Microsoft Bot Framework is overcoming
channel weakness with a cross-platform solution.

…and Project Murphy is hands down the most fun
you can have right now with a chat bot.
This is
pretty
impressive
NLP on
display

Proving that chatbots can be sexy,
even though it’s still early days.

Thank you!

Grata is the leading provider of enterprise
contact center software for WeChat.
grata_co info@grata.co grata_co

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