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One night in Corvallis, with the Oregon State basketball team heading to its 14th straight loss of its season, the talk around the hotel bar moved from the television screen to a far different form of communication — chatbots.
No one used that word, of course. But the technology took front and center in a conversation about Alexa, the voice-activated digital assistant from Amazon that can do everything from play music to order groceries. Give Amazon credit: it’s pushed hard to win the hearts and minds of U.
S. consumers, teeing up more than 100 mini ads for just that purpose.Software that can respond to voice or text commands is a high-growth investment sector about to explode in scope and penetration worldwide. Look no further than the announcement by Mark Zuckerberg last year that Facebook Messenger will be opened to bot development. With Messenger drawing 1.2 billion users per month, its corporate parent is now actively encouraging developers to plug in and more than 10,000 have already done so.
The rise of chatbots also signals a landscape-altering reality: the decline of standalone mobile apps. Alphabet, Facebook, Snap and others see a world where a spoken or typed word can trigger software that is intelligent enough to handle airline reservations, make clothing purchases, or a reorganize one’s calendar. It will be the difference between opening an airline app to get your flight information and simply typing or saying, “Grab my boarding pass.”
And it’s already happening. Onvoya, for example, can find a flight based on your travel preferences. Talklocal lets you request a plumber like you’re ordering pizza. And Dotin can use publicly available posts, photos, and other data to help companies pinpoint everything from buying behaviors to good employment matches.
In fact, you can argue the messaging layer of the software stack will be the de facto operating systems of the future, with bots handling most the chores of today’s phone-based apps.
For investors, the growth of chatbots has two important implications. First, it will fuel a rising demand for artificial-intelligence software (AI) to make businesses bot friendly. Second, it will create a standardized and low-data use approach to reach markets still challenged by high-speed connectivity.
In other words, bots will make it as easy to sell in India as Indiana.
Battle for the intelligence layer
For the next decade, the key business technology driver will be bots that can connect to both local and cloud-based data centers. That will put a premium on AI routines that can connect voice and text commands to everyday processes.
Already the battle is on among startups to become the go-to provider of affordable, AI-driven bot technology. One such example is Botworx. The California company provides businesses with bots that can…
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