Facebook Chat-Bots Could Be Better Than Humans

Artificial intelligence "chat-bots" could be the future of online interaction, Facebook (NasdaqGS: FB - news) has said.

The social media giant is building the ability into its Messenger app for third-party software to engage in lifelike text exchanges with users.

The move was announced at the firm's annual F8 developers' conference in San Francisco, with founder Mark Zuckerberg predicting that bots could eventually be better than real people at natural language text conversations.

He said: "We think you should be able to text message a business like you would a friend, and get a quick response.

"Our goal with artificial intelligence is to build systems that are better than people at perception seeing, hearing, language and so on."

Facebook announced that the number of monthly users of Messenger has topped 900 million.

Allowing firms to create customer service bots within Messenger could be one way for Facebook to monetise the platform.

AI is already used in Messenger, and can do things like recognise faces in pictures to suggest potential recipients.

In future it may be able to understand what is in pictures and video, and recommend content to members of the social network using advanced insights, Mr Zuckerberg said.

Bot-building tools will be given to third-party developers, but Facebook will have to approve their creations before they are released.

Mr Zuckerberg also outlined the company's plans for increased live video streaming and virtual reality projects (Other OTC: UBGXF - news) .