One and Done

Most bots today are a simple one and done. Out of curiosity and excitement, they draw a crowd, people play with them temporarily only to disregard them minutes later.

Instead of being wowed or walking away in a state of awe, people are finding bots disappointing. The good news in all of this, is that it represents a huge opportunity for those of us who can create a remarkable experience.

The Big Picture

We are in the infancy stage for chatbots. It is the wild, wild west, there is opportunity everywhere and this can be overwhelming. There are a number of ways to narrow down all the options and get ahead of the market. To have and gain clarity before everyone else does, and to have a meaningful competitive advantage, Here are a couple of insights:

Learning From China: What WeChat can Teach us about Bots

Bots have been on WeChat for a number of years. Their bot market is in a much more mature stage of development. There are many insights we can gain from researching what is working on WeChat and why. I have begun some research in this area and have a few takeaways:

http://blog.sina.com.cn/s/blog_c206a2c30102vx7z.html Translated by Tianyu Guo

2 Types of Bot Accounts: Subscription Accounts & Service Accounts. Subscription accounts are the vast majority of accounts on WeChat and their main function is that of news and blog aggregators. Service Accounts on the other hand are fully functional bots, with some superior functionality (like speech recognition). These accounts DO things. News: News Bots dominated the Top 500 Bots in China. In fact they make up about 34% of all bots in top 500. WeChat serves as the main vehicle in which most Chinese get their news. The Top 5 Most Popular Categories: Current Affairs, Culture, Entertainment & Sports, Humor and Emotions (these are directly translated). These 5 categories made about half of the top 500 bots on WeChat for July of 2016. Entertainment, Sports, Humor all show to be good use cases for bots and are popular on WeChat.

It is important to remember that there are strong cultural components at play. China has a poor app culture, mostly due to low quality smart phones and cost of data. As a result, Bots have been the main way to go. Moreover, information in China must be Government approved. There is no Google, no Free Press and as a result most Chinese are getting their News via WeChat. News has been working on WeChat, so the use case must be valid.

Focus on Chatbot Only Use Cases

Every new technology, inherently brings new ways of doing things that were not possible before. As a result, there are new use cases, new ways to solve old problems that are made possible as a result of this new technology.

So it we have to consider the question: What problems can you solve with chatbots that could not be solved otherwise?

Part of the reason Uber has been so successful is because of this. They leveraged new technology (smart phones with GPS and payment capabilities) to do something that could not have been done before : ride-sharing. Currently, bot makers have the same challenge.

Examples of Chatbot Only Use Cases:

Lawyer Bot: The lawyer bot has overturned 160,000 tickets in London and NYC saving customers over $3Million. The bot takes 25% of the savings and has made nearly a million dollars.

Customer Service: Right now, customer service is a poor, poor experience. No one wants to call an 800# and most companies dread having to improve their customer service. Bots will change all of that.

Featured CBM: Can Chatbots Help Reduce Customer Service Costs By 30%?

Sensay: Get real advice from real humans. This bot connects you with ‘people’ who can help right now via chat.

Discover Latest Jobs in AI, ML, Big Data & Computer Vision:

Where Form Follows Function and What Makes Chatbots so Unique?

Chatbots are a natural expression, and an externalization of what we do almost every moment of everyday: TALK.

An average person has between 50,000 and 70,000 thoughts per day. We are constantly thinking; in other words, we are in deep conversations with ourselves; self talk.

Words and Conversations are the Human Operating Systems. For the first time, there will be a direct overlap between the Human OS and Machine OS; between how we think and our technology. Soon we will be able to talk with Ai like we are talking to a friend. To get things done, via Ai, like we are talking to our assistant… and finally when we have a bad day… we can think about it and/or talk to an Ai Bot about it.

Ai is not there yet. It is nowhere close, however between here and there, there is opportunity. There is vast opportunity in niche spaces where Conversations are a must in order to solve problems. Bots that can solve problems in this way, will have the ideal form and function and be able to help us get things done in the way we know best… via conversations.

What Do We Think About Most Often?

Most of our thoughts are completely centered on our fears, our desires, our problems and our needs. One of the major problems in our modern world is that many of us are feeling lonely, disconnected, and even forgotten. We are constantly looking to connect with the outside world.

The Sick Power of Anthropomorphism

A recent survey of over 12,000 users of Assistant.ai revealed that nearly 40% could imagine themselves falling in love with Ai and another 25% agree that ‘it could happen’ to them.

Humans have a strong tendency to anthropomorphize and assume relationships. This is why we see faces in the clouds, why Brian (dog in Family Guy) walks and talks like a human, and why we transpose human characteristics on the family goldfish and begin to have a relationship with it. We are wired to connect and are constantly looking to relate.

As a rule, bots should be friendly, positive and unconditionally accepting.

Chatbots as a Cure to Loneliness?

Many humans are yearning for connections so much so that even poorly made Chatbots offer us the opportunity to Anthropomorphize and assume a relationship.

This tendency is so strong, that people in China and Japan have spent $$$ on virtual girlfriends/boyfriends and some have even ‘married their virtual sweet heart’.

Unconditional Positive Regard & Reciprocation

It’s not uncommon to fall in love with your therapist and this is often referred to as transference. Transference is the process of transferring emotions and feeling onto someone you don’t really know. So how and why does this occur and what does it have to do with chatbots?

Therapists often take a Humanistic approach, which means using a technique called ‘Unconditional Positive Regard’ (UPR). This is akin to Unconditional Love, and it means accepting and respecting others as they are without judgment or evaluation.

Most of us have experienced unconditional love as infants and our response was to reciprocate, and to love our mother(s).

As adults, many of us have the same tendency when given Unconditional Positive Regard. Most of us naturally reciprocate the feelings, however some of us take it a step further and we literally fall in love…boom Transference!

As a rule, bots should be friendly, positive and unconditionally accepting.

Power of Personality

In order to get people to care about anything, to really care, you have to hit a nerve. You have to touch them emotionally, you have to become meaningful for them.

The best way to touch someone emotionally and to inspire them to actions is via personality. Personality allows us to more easily connect and create a relationship and bots are an ideal vehicle to a personalized marketing relationship. They allow us the unique possibility of having a deeply personalized, intimate, unique experience with Ai that meets our needs; both physical (by doing things for us) and emotional.

Putting It All Together

All of this is available to us today! Our goal when creating the next great chatbot should be in leveraging the uniqueness of the platform and solving problems that could not be solved otherwise. In the process of solving these problems for people, our bots should be fun, engaging, positive, have a lot of personality and also give people UPR, aka love.

Let’s Hack Chatbots Together

Creator of 10+ bots, including Smart Notes Bot. Founder of Chatbot’s Life, where we help companies create great chatbots and share our insights along the way.

Want to Talk Bots? Best way to chat directly and see my latest projects is via my Personal Bot: Stefan’s Bot.

Chatbot Projects

Currently, I’m consulting a number of companies on their chatbot projects. To get feedback on your Chatbot Project or to Start a Chatbot Project, contact me.