Facebook will be unveiling chatbots and Live Chat APIs for Messenger at its upcoming F8 developer's conference in San Francisco next week.
Chatbots, which are artificial intelligence-powered virtual agents that can simulate human conversation, could soon allow users to do a variety of tasks on Messenger. Such tasks could include buying from an online store and launching particular searches.
"It's this notion of conversations as a service," said Moor Insights & Strategy analyst Patrick Moorhead.
"Imagine connecting with a company where it automatically is either a real human or uses AI to know exactly what you want," he added.
As such, these chatbots could replace 1-800 numbers. However, not all companies would have the technical knowledge and resources to develop their own chatbots for Messenger, which is why Facebook will also be releasing API tools to make it easier for developers to create chatbots and Live Chat plug-ins for businesses.
According to a report by TechCrunch, Facebook already offers a directory containing approved marketing partners, which allows companies to look for providers that will help them in aspects such as advertising, content and community management. There are no partners yet that will assist companies in messaging, though Facebook will most likely soon announce official partners for the development of messaging features, including chatbots.
TechCrunch was also able to acquire a presentation that Facebook has sent to some developers for chatbots which detail what are called Structured Messages. These messages contain a title, a picture, a URL, a description, and a call to action such as accessing a website or making a reservation or order for a service or product.
Another thing that Facebook is working on is plug-ins for websites that would allow customers to interact with businesses through Messenger instead of through email or phone. The plug-ins will insert Live Chat buttons on websites and, once tapped, would launch Messenger to allow the customer to talk to a human support agent.
More details about chatbots and Live Chat for Messenger will be revealed during the two-day F8 conference, which will begin on April 12.
Microsoft is another big name in the tech industry that recently tried its hand with chatbots with one named Tay. However, the experiment did not go so well, as Tay tweeted a series of racist and sexist posts that forced Microsoft to shut it down and issue an apology.
