Insights into Chatbot Development Implementing X-Platform Chatbots

Hi guys!

My name is Dr. Barbara Ondrisek and today I'm going to give a talk about my experience developing cross-platform chatbots. I created one of the very first chatbots on Facebook and definitely Austrias first Facebook Messenger and Skype chat bot.

About me: Ive made my PhD at the University of Technology Vienna and been working as a consultant and freelancer for more than 15 years for different mostly big companies mostly as a Backend developer on web projects (most recently for George / Erste Bank).

Background

I have a strong Backend dev background and in the last couple of years Ive been working as a Senior Backend developer with a disposedness to full stack and mobile. I also love to play around with other technologies and as Facebook announced on their F8 conference mid of April last year to open up their Messenger platform to bots I was eager to try their API!So I created one of the very first chatbots on Facebook and definitely Austrias first Facebook Messenger and Skype chat bot: Mica, the Hipster Cat Bot.

Chatbots

What are chatbots?Oxford dict "bot": "An autonomous program on a network which interacts with systems or users"A chatbot is a service that enables you to interact with a service or company through a conversational interface. So it is a interactive program embedded in a program, the messenger app.Bots are also referred to as virtual assistants, virtual agents, conversational UI or conversational commerce. Or Conversation as a Service.

Advantages

The idea (and opportunity) behind chatbots is that there is no huge barrier to use it in contrast to apps, which have to be installed separately. Youd need a phone with an app store, also have to remember your password in order to install an app, need to have free space on the device and a good connection to download it etc. - only to mention some of the obstacles getting your app delivered to the user. In contrast to that 1 billion people worldwide are already using Facebook Messenger (and 300 million use Skype) and now with a chat bot I can reach all of them easily on a platform they already know.

Chatbots are new?

Chatbots are not a super new thing!Historically speaking the very first chatbot was developed at the MIT AI Lab by the computer scientist Joseph Weizenbaum in the mid1960s. This bot, ELIZA, simulated a Rogerian psychiatrist and Weizenbaum wanted to find out with this project, how natural language can be used in human-computer-interfaces. ELIZA was programmed to analyze the input of key words and to respond with a number of canned phrases containing therapeutic language.

Also the first computers where designed in this manner: A question-answer system.And there were also text based computer games in the 80s such as Zork.

Why now?

You should message a business just the way you would message a friend Mark Zuckerberg at F8Why now?

Microsoft announced end of March at their BUILD conference the bot-support on Skype. Two weeks later Facebook announced at their F8 conference that they finally opened their messenger API for bots and the first bots started to be approved by Facebook. Only a few days later , a Facebook Messenger weather bot, raised 2M of funding.

Natural Language Processing

Further Google presented at their Google I/O (mid May) another innovative chat platform Allo that also should support NLP. Further they announced in mid July their Cloud Natural Language API as a Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning framework.
IBM also released their NLP framework Watson. Facebook bought Wit.ai, Google bought api.ai, a machine learning framework. Amazon / Alexa has angel.ai. Microsoft started Bot Framework and LUIS (short for Language Understanding Intelligent Services), a machine learning framework.

So all of the big players in the field are pushing the topic.

Messaging Apps

(c) Benjamin Keyser

Why are we doing this? 1 minute of 3 online spent minutes is spent mobile, but we see that the usage of numbers of apps is dropping (80% of time is spent in only 3 different apps), but not messenger apps!

The current app trend is to go away from social media to messengers.

This graph is already outdated, ...

Messaging > Social MediaStatistics show, that messaging apps are used more frequently than Social Media Apps.

This grafic shows that more people use FB Messenger than Facebook for Status-Posts. Direct communication is used more frequently than posting, where you dont know who exactly is reading it.

App Downloads pro Monat

One in three online spent minutes are spent on mobile phones, but in total numbers the usage of apps is dropping. People dont download new apps anymore. 65% dont download new apps anymore!

Time in Messaging Apps

80% der Zeit am Handy verbringt man genau in 3 Apps, in manchen Lndern bis zu einer Stunde durchschnittlich am Tag!

Platforms for Chatbots

WhatsApp: 1 Billion monatlich aktive User (MAU)Facebook Messenger: 1 BillonQQ (ICQ China): 900 MAUWeChat (WhatsApp in China): 800 MAUViber: >300 million monthly active users (>800 total)Twitter: 310 MAUSkype: 300 MAULine App (Asien) : 220 MAUTelegram: 100 MAUKik (USA): 300 Millionen reg User (total)Slack: 4 Millionen tglich aktive UserHipChat, Cisco Spark, Microsoft Teams...iMessage (Apple): 250 mio usersKakao: 160 mioBBM: 100 mio MAUVKontakte, Discord, SMS...

Platforms per region

(c) david pichsenmeister

Different messenger platforms are used in different countries. Kik for instance is super popular in the US (especially for teenages), Viber is very popular in Slavik countries, Central Eastern Europe and South East Asia, Line is popular in Asian countries. So if you decide to launch a bot in a certain region take this regional differences in account.

The advantage of chatbots is that you attract the users where they usually are: In messenger apps. Not download or install of apps is needed, you can present your company on a channel where all these people spend their time!

However, messengers are widely used, but what about China?

WeChat in China

The same is already happening in China with WeChat and QQ, where people integrate the messenger app far more in their intimate personal life through micro-payments to friends, or paying their electronic bills or rents in WeChat. WeChat pay offers a lot of different services and became a single medium for all transactionsand Messenger wants to become this for the West.

Mica, the Hipster Cat Bot

However, after Facebook announced to open up their Messenger platform to bots I was eager to try their API and started to develop Mica, the Hipster Cat Bot, which started as a chatbot for Facebook Messenger and Skype, that helps you discover the best places near by.

Mica started as a spin-off of LIKE A HIPSTER, an app that shows you trendy places.

Facebook Messenger

This is the Facebook Messenger implementation - We designed her personality like this:

She is a cat and a bot. She likes funny cat pictures and milk, but doesn't like water. She also enjoys hanging out in hip coffee shops and knows the the best places worldwide.

The internet loves cats ... so I created Mica, the Hipster Cat Bot as fictional character and my chatbot got a face. First I thought I use my cat's face as fb page icon, but than I thought an abstraction would fit better.

Many different implementations

So, why only stay with one platform? There are so many such as Kik, Line App, Telegram and so I thought I implement it on Skype!Microsoft announced end of March two weeks earlier than Facebook - at their BUILD conference the bot-support on Skype. Facebook Messenger has 1 billion unique users per month, but Skype still has 300 mio!

Skype

... and so I decided to implement it on Skype!Skype implementation is missing some features. Meanwhile there are structured messages (buttons), carousel lists, but still no animated content (gifs, videos)...

Commercial Chatbots

Mica