The Facebook Messenger platform has recently launched the ability to build bots for businesses (beta version only) to help take care of a wide range of different tasks. These bots will be able to help with customer service, answer questions, provide directions and even make purchases for users. The platform was displayed at the F8 developers conference with Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s CEO, speaking about this and a variety of other topics.
While bots and even ‘customer service’ bots have been around for a long time, these aren’t at that same level. When done properly, these bots will be able to understand the meaning of what people input and provide useful answers in a way that is easy to understand. Of course, it will also be able to go through ‘scripted’ responses for things like making purchases and other common activities.
How these bots (and the similar services that will undoubtedly be coming out soon) will impact the world of digital marketing. Marketers will be able to develop these types of bots to handle a variety of customer interactions and other activities that are currently handled by a human. There may also be opportunities for marketers with development talents to offer services to companies where they create these types of bots for them.
While it is not yet possible to see how (or even if) these ‘intelligent’ bots will impact the industry, it is certainly something to be watching to see what opportunities present themselves.
