Facebook Messenger introducing ‘chat bot’ artificial intelligence

Facebook is building artificial intelligence-powered “chat-bots” into its Messenger application to allow businesses to have software that can engage in lifelike text exchanges with users, company co-founder and chief Mark Zuckerberg says.Bots are software infused with the ability to “learn” from conversations, and could get better at figuring out what people are telling them and how best to respond.The move was announced at the company’s annual developers’ conference in San Francisco, coming as the number of monthly users of Messenger topped 900 million and with the company working to stay in tune with mobile internet lifestyles.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-04-13/facebook-bringing-chat-bots-to-messenger/7322446Also see:Facebook Bets on a Bot Resurgence, Chattier Than Ever
To browse for a pair of brown loafers on Facebook Messenger, you can now text a message to the service to begin a conversation with the mobile shopping start-up Spring. Spring will ask you for a preferred price range for the shoes and show a smattering of what it thinks you might like. If the selection elicits yawns, Spring will try some different options.The experience is akin to chatting with a friend, “the one whose taste you always trust while you’re shopping,” said Alan Tisch, chief executive of Spring.There’s just one thing: The entity on the other end talking to you and helping you choose the shoes is not human. It is a chatbot, a relatively simple piece of software that uses artificial intelligence to carry on a conversation.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/04/13/technology/facebook-bets-on-a-bot-resurgence-chattier-than-ever.html