The Rise of Chatbots in 2016

The Rise of Chatbots in 2016

2016 was a big year for chatbots

This year we’ve tracked an incredible amount of growth and experimentation with the creation of chatbots. They were created by brands, celebrities and individuals to solve a host of problems - and sometimes just because.

This deck outlines some of the many bots making a splash this year with basic bots automating old processes and more specialized bots starting to provide an emotional safety net hinting to untapped potential.

It seems no industry was immune. The following cases cover:

- Retail- Entertainment- Finance- Food and Beverage - Fashion- Cosmetics- Healthcare- Government - Insurance- CPG- Automotive

Conversational Complexity Conversational Complexity

ShopBot Bot by eBay

Aiming to find the sweet spot between search engine and personal recommendation.

This bot is powered by AI and will use machine learning over time to create more relevant results. An interesting feature in the beta version is its ability to use images as an input for search. This way you can look for similar items if you upload a photo.

For now the process isn’t entirely seamless with users having to view full product descriptions on the website outside of the chat window and image search results that are not very similar to the input.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed

Limited Text selections

NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Product Discovery

Themes: Personalized Search

Industries: Retail

Sephora Bot

Personalized tips and product recommendations via a bot on Kik.

This bot reaches Gen Z with personalized recommendations. An initial series of questions the bot discovers the brands you prefer and and the beauty products you’re interested in. It serves up videos and text tips pulled from the extensive ecosystem of product related content they’ve created for their web experience.

Problem Addressed: Product Discovery Themes: Mass Personalization, Customer Service, Personal Style

Industries: Cosmetics

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Conversational Complexity

1-800-Flowers

“It’s pretty ironic: To order from 1-800-Flowers, you never have to call 1-800-Flowers again.” - Mark Zuckerberg

1-800-Flowers was the chatbot example used in the F8 conference when messenger announced it was open for branded chatbots. It used this interface to upgrade how people order flowers by either taking an order step by step or connecting with a rep at a virtual contact center. The company reports that people can now place an order in a minute.

1-800-Flowers is all in, investing in AI concierge named Gwyn (“Gifts When You Need” powered by IBM’s Watson and ordering via voice with Amazon’s Alexa.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Ordering speed & customer preference (brand relevance)

Themes: Mass Personalization

Industries: Retail

Conversational Complexity Conversational Complexity

Tommy Hilfiger Bot

TMY.GRL launched during a fashion show to democratize the runway

“The new consumer and brand relationship is on the cusp of the most significant change since the smartphone. Messaging is becoming the new browser and the gateway to consumer life, with artificial Intelligence bots being the new user interface” - Said Puneet Mehta founder and CEO of msg.ai

This is a AI powered bot aimed at increasing fan loyalty rather than being a long term solution.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Global Brand Engagement

Themes: Personal Style

Industries: Fashion


Health Tap

Free healthcare information with doctors standing by to take questions.

The health concierge service aims to provide useful health information at scale. After accepting terms of service you can ask questions and get answers from the archives or pose a question to a participating physician. The idea is an evolution on remote access to physicians (like Doctors on Demand), actual performance, TBD.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Increasing Personal Reach

Themes: Always on, Mass Personalization

Industries: Healthcare Conversational Complexity

AmEx Facebook Bot

Credit card bot combines card use alerts and related benefits

Basic functionality includes access to your account and alerts when your card is used. Additionally AmEx benefits related to purchases will be surfaced when appropriate. The bot it not conversational and does not engage in conversation.

Problem Addressed: Mindless spending, benefit discovery

Themes: Alerts, Discovery

Industries: Finance

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Go Vote Bot

R/GA created a Facebook Messenger Bot to encourage younger voters to register before the deadline.

The bot uses the same API that powers Rock the Vote. The team hopes brands will place the bot on their Facebook pages with designed brand assets that complement the GoVoteBot.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Overcoming barriers to registration, Civic Engagement

Themes: Automation

Industries: Government Conversational Complexity

Parking Ticket Bot

The Do Not Pay chatbot successfully contested

160,00 parking tickets across London and NY.

“The world’s first robot lawyer” asks a series of questions to determine if an appeal is possible, if so it contests the ticket. Over 21 months it took 250,00 cases and won 160,00 of them with a 64% success rate worth over $4m of parking tickets.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Excessive Ticketing

Themes: Law, Exploitation, Automation

Industries: Government


Kip - multi-platform group Shopping

Chatbot developers agree that cross-platform functionality is key

Kip is a group shopping bot that helps people order things for the office and track expenses. Managing administrative tasks across teams is a common chatbot use case. This means that they need to be ready to function across a variety of platforms, providing the same service and experience to people using the messaging app of their choice.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Managing group decisions

Themes: Mobile Distributed apps, Multi-platform, Integration

Industries: Administrative services, Communication, Retail


Evia - Insurance Assistant

Evia is a comparison tool that help you find the best car insurance rate.

This bot connects to car insurance providers and finds relevant information when you text a photo of your licence plate.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Price Comparison

Themes: Automation, Price Transparency

Industries: Insurance


Whole Foods

Whole Foods uses a bot and emoji to help people

discover recipes.

Whole Foods created a bot to help people discover new recipes. The bot can respond to text as well as emoji to surface relevant options.

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice

Problem Addressed: Discovering new foods and recipes

Themes: Discovery

Industries: Supermarket


NBA bot

NBA tests a Facebook Messenger bot during the finals.

The NBA has a digital first approach and yet they don’t see any diminished interest in broadcast. The test was set to see if key moments can be supported. The bot was able to find info on players by nicknames, answer questions, and compile video highlights by player.

Problem Addressed: Looking at increasing fan engagement

Themes: Second screen

Industries: Athletics

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Little Brush Big Brush

Unilever launches customized storytime via a chatbot to help families brush more frequently

R/GA London created a 21 episode series of animations that aim to inspire parents and children to brush their teeth together. The chatbot is available on Facebook messenger and options during an introduction allow people to customize the stories and set the time of day they want to watch the episodes. Brushing challenges unlock rewards and help establish the habit.

Problem Addressed: People who don’t brush consistently don’t buy as much toothpaste

Themes: Personalized Communications, storytelling

Industries: CPGDecision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


DuoLingo

Learn a new language without embarrassment by talking to a bot.

DuoLingo attempted to connect real people learning the opposite language but found that users didn’t like the experience. Instead they wanted to practice the conversation before actually having one.

Problem Addressed: Interactive learning without the fear of being wrong

Themes: Always On, Emotional Safety Net

Industries: Education

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Taco Bell Slack Bot

Order for the office through the chat channels at work.

Taco Bell launched a Bot on slack for a few teams. It included the ability to customize your order and deciding which store to pick it up from. It also was built to include a sense of humor. Actual practical value- low.

Note: Hey Taco! Is another slack bot created by someone in HR who knows the reason people leave jobs is because they don’t feel appreciated. Hey Taco was his way to help employees feel appreciated.

Problem Addressed: Making ordering at work easy

Themes: Personality, Automation

Industries: Food and Beverage

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Ghostbot

A chatbot can take the task of slowly ending relationships off your hands.

Ghostbot is a bot that works within the Burner app. The Burner app makes it easy to create and destroy new phone numbers. Within that app Ghostbot helps you gently discourage advances. It has been described as “the first bot-as-personal firewall” going beyond screening your messages to replying in a way to indicate disinterest.

Problem Addressed: Awkward breakups

Themes: Emotional Safety Net

Industries: Communications

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


The real PSL - Starbucks

Starbucks has given the PSL a personality - and it’s a bit of a self centered brat.

This bot talks in circles, repeats questions and doesn’t really care what you have to say. However, it is loaded with cute pictures and jokes. It doesn't answer any questions about starbucks products and it is obsessed with death. This bot is seasonal, punny and not meant to be useful at all.

Themes: Entertainment, Brand Engagement

Industries: Food and Beverage

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Microsoft: Xiaoice & Tay

Two learning bots, two very different results.

Xiaoice was a project by Microsoft in China in which a bot would converse with strangers and respond as a human would, focusing on blending in and bonding with humans. She is focused on your emotional state and even offers a 33-day breakup therapy course. She is a friend that is always available. She averages 23 exchanges per session, at a much higher rate than most personal assistants at 1.5-2.5 exchanges.

Tay was a project by Microsoft project in the US. Within a day of learning responses on Twitter Tay was responding with racist, sexually-charged responses. The bot was taken taken offline after 16 hours.

Themes: Emotional Safety Net, Always On, AI Morality

Industries: Tech

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Redfoo’s Personal Foo Bot

Redfoo of LMFAO launches a personal bot to engage with fans on Facebook.

Olabot is a company built to help everyone make their own personal bot. The bot allows for direct messages as well as broadcast messages and ephemeral group chat. Upto 100 people can join a live chat inside Messenger that lasts only a few minutes and is only available live. Although there are still some kinks to work broadcast messages show signs of hope for fan engagement on facebook.

See also: Elon Musk bot & Casey Neistat bot

Problem Addressed: Increasing personal reach

Themes: Personality, Celebrity

Industries: Entertainment

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Roman Memorial Bot

When her best friend died Eugenia Kuyda created a memorial bot.

Using texts from the past a friend created a bot that could simulate conversation in his style using Artificial Intelligence. Response was mixed with those who used it feeling like they could still get to know parts of his personality they didn’t see when he was alive. The bot was created to help with the grieving process.

Problem Addressed: Grieving, Emotional Health

Themes: Personality, Emotional Safety Net, AI Morality

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Hiro Baby Bot

This is a personal assistant to help parents through a baby’s first year.

This personal assistant helps notify parents of milestones, recommends products and helps prep for each stage of development. Human experts and AI work together to answer questions. The basic model shares proactive alerts and reminders and the paid tier ($20 a month) allows you to connect with experts, receive recommendations and get help with orders.

Problem Addressed: Parenting Stress

Themes: Education, Always On, Emotional Safety Net

Industries: Baby Products Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


Toyota’s Kirobo Mini

Toyota combines AI with robotics to transform driving… one day.

Kirobo is a cupholder sized robot with voice recognition, movement and what may be the intelligence of a 5 year old. For now what it can do is limited and it is being sold as a toy that helps provide emotional companionship. In the future the goal is to become an assistant that can make recommendations based on a driver's behavior and mood.

Problem Addressed: Emotional Companionship

Themes: Personality, Emotional Safety Net

Industries: Automotive

Decision Tree

Pre-Programmed


NLP

Evolving/Learning

Voice


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EMILY HEANStrategy

EMILY CHANCreative

JORDAN GRAYTechnology

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NIKKI HOZACreative

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Date post:	16-Apr-2017
Category:	Technology
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