Warming Up To Chatbots
People around the world are warming to the idea of chatbots. Take a look at the different ways we are coming to appreciate our robot friends.
In the advertising, commerce and publishing space there has been a lot of chatter and excitement around chatbots. Most recently about chatbots’ potential to change how companies find and interact with the public. Despite all the hype, if you ask the average human if they’d rather chat to a bot or a real person their answer will be simple: chatting with bots is annoying.
Bots and Business
It’s true that, for a lot of reasons, chatting to a bot will most likely be frustrating. It is never be as fluid as chatting to someone who understands tonal nuance and a range of emotions. Humans simply have more reference points and abilities to read non-verbal cues. Hence, why it can be particularly annoying for customers who are seeking an answer to an urgent query to be answered not by a bot who speaks rigidly and doesn’t understand their needs. Indeed, in their excitement to embrace the bot revolution, companies should tread carefully. There are plenty of situations where using a bot could hinder rather than help your company’s reputation.
As Wired put it, “Chatbots, you see, don’t chat very well. Even those built atop the latest tech are limited in what they can understand and how well they can respond. For now, talking to a bot is like talking to, well, a machine. That makes conversational commerce feel like a false promise.”
Chatbots Expanding their Horizons
However, as the technology progresses, we are starting to see more places where a chatbot makes more sense than a real human. This is encouraging for people working to develop the chatbot space, as it shows that given the right set of circumstances, humans will warm up to the idea of talking to a bot over, well, a human being. While there is more work to be done before we reach mass adoption, the signs are there that chatbots are gaining traction beyond just early techies and enthusiasts.
Examples like Siri and Viv are the most common forms of chatbots that most people encounter. While it’s certainly important that they exist in terms of exposing people to the idea of integrating chatbots into their lives, the fact that they try to provide such broad functionality means they don’t quite end up living up to their hype. As TechCrunch notes, “Chatbots that try to do too much usually fail. Viv and Siri both suffer from this; they aim to cover everything, and in the process compromise on quality.”
Bilingual Chatbots
A positive example of chatbots branching out is the language app Duolingo. Duolingo just released a new feature that allows users to carry out a mock conversation with a bot. This is especially useful in language learning, as the human participant’s skills are rather basic and they may be intimidated to speak to someone that has full proficiency in the language. While talking to bot, they can practice the unpredictability of a conversation but not have to worry about the embarrassment of getting it wrong. As Alex Hern of the Guardian wrote, “The needs of a language-teaching chatbot are rather different from other applications, and a big difference is that it’s not only OK, but entirely necessary, for the chatbot to gently guide you through what you should say.”
The Chatbots of the Future
Chatbots are also gaining some popularity in the context of a very specific conversation or task. Such is the case with GoButler, which can carry out tasks like booking a flight or hotel room. By “limiting the chatter to very specific requests and responses” you eliminate the frustration of a bot that isn’t capable of giving you what you want. However, you maintain the usefulness of the automated service. While this is just one example, it is certainly a bright spot in the future of bots.