On the aftermath of their debut on messaging apps, chatbots have been at the epicenter of an ongoing conversation about personalisation. Why did this collaboration happen? And how far will my ai gf go? It really is time to take a deep dive.

In the ’60s, renowned media analyst Marshall McLuhan argued that the ‘Medium is the message’. He was certain that it had a function in shaping and controlling “the scale and type of human association and action” up to an extent. According to this theory, the medium embeds itself onto anything it transmits, and it directly influences the way the actual message is perceived. It tries to be an extension of our senses, expanding our capacity to perceive and interact with the world.

Now, about half a century later, the medium becomes an acceptable kind of human interaction – say hello to your messaging apps. As of last year, there have been 1 billion users (14% of the world’s population) on WhatsApp. And combined with the customers on Messenger, there are 60 billion messages – text, video, recordings that are sent and received every day. Exactly where else would enterprises find a greater level of engagement?

In a current survey performed by Facebook, participants who could chat with retailers on these messaging platforms, be it on transactions, inquiries, or post sales services, felt far more good about the business. Commerce became a personal affair. McLuhan was correct, and is nonetheless suitable – The impact of messaging does lie on the medium.

It really is been virtually 20 years, and why have not businesses been largely productive harnessing these platforms but? For the reason that until chatbots came along in 2016, corporations advertising and marketing themselves via messaging apps have been oblivious to one philosophy/brand of personalisation – ‘If not human, be humane.’

Ever considering the fact that they entered the industry, chatbots on messaging platforms have been hit. They are possessing a positive impact on businesses, as far more industries are jumping aboard the ‘personalisation’ bandwagon. Now, what is the next step? What does the future behold for this eclectic union? Here are three possibilities –

With chatbots, messaging apps will grow to be the new browsers. They are about to do for businesses what web-sites have been performing for them about a decade back. Forrester Investigation expects investments in AI and Machine Finding out to triple in 2017, to superior harness user behavior, to boost the conversational interface brought about by bots.
Messaging apps will turn into more relevant to IoT installations. For e.g. much more customers will begin to obtain coupons, notifications on sales and so on. by way of messages when they happen to just pass by the shop. Or alternatively, workers in a factory can remain better connected with their machinery, and make superior use of the data collected.
The ‘App culture’ is sinking, as customers are having additional tight-fisted about device memory and data usage. But messaging apps/platforms are still titled ‘essential’ for the reason that messaging is now a way of life. Because chatbot platforms can straight deploy bots onto these apps, the want for a proprietary app is canceled. And the scope of services that enterprises present on these apps can hold expanding.