My "Three bots theory"

The Three Bots Theory relies on creating a user experience - which is severely lacking with the Bot space - based on interacting with at least three bots per developer. Due to the fact that we are at the very early stages of Bot Boom if you will, there are no best practices available as to what works, what constitutes a good Bot implementation and even no clear consensus of what Artificial Intelligence or Machine Learning or Deep Learning or any of these concepts are. Internet being Internet and smart developers being smart developers, everybody is coming up with some version of what a conversational interface can be and as usual some are producing better consumer grade products than others. Just like any other commercial space, the consumer demand and taste will shape the products here, but we just don’t have enough quality products out there. Consumers have no real expectancies based on good implementations as to what a Bot can do, how it can impact their daily lives easier.

We need consumers to see at least three well implemented Bots each to have an educated and realistic opinion about what a Bot is, can be, or should be. A well implemented Bot is one that functions to fill a need, make the users’ life better, provide some convenience in a productive manner – think interfacing with your house lights by talking as in Amazon/Echo; or being able to order pizza from your favorite place during a WhatsApp conversation with your friends from within the conversation. Since the term Artificial Intelligence (AI) is frequently involved with the Bot space, the early adopters tend to have a high expectation - even from the most basic Facebook bot that was built to deliver weather information. We should accept this as normal, and know that it will take time before there is a consensus on what a Bot is.

Putting at least three Bots in front of people has become my priority since March 2016 when TechCrunch wrote an article about the upcoming F8 Developer Conference where they mentioned Facebook would be announcing their Bot platform. When Facebook, one of the most important tech companies in the world with strong relations in major consumer brands made this announcement, I knew that a fundamental paradigm shift was on its way. I started dedicating a significant amount of my time writing blog posts, answering Quora questions, participating on Facebook chatbots group sharing my 10 years of experience with building conversational interfaces. I wanted to expedite the process of creating a Bot awareness so that there would be a bigger market to sell my Bots in.

There are many technical “how to” guides out there, and not being a developer myself, I focused heavily on the business end of things in my book. Technology platforms might change any second, so I will cover some online resources which might be helpful for those looking for guidance in technology side of things.

I am also starting an online program where I will prepare monthly report distribution. Please visit botsuccess.com and register to get a free consultation session. https://www.botsuccess.com/

I hope you find this book helpful in guiding you through building a profitable, growing, sustainable Bot business.

I’m thankful to my technical partner I. Cem Onur for his valuable contribution, his experience as a developer was invaluable during the writing process. 

(This is a chapter from my book: "Bot Business 101")