Talk with a robot in Facebook Messenger

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Facebook will most likely unveil a brand new service called ? Bot Store ? that will allow businesses to integrate an AI-based virtual assistant within Messenger. In other words: a robot.

Take me up: this is BIG news.

Prior to next week’s long-awaited Facebook F8 developer conference in San Francisco, announcements and leaks keep running. We already know that Instant Articles is rolling out globally on 12 April, which should get enterprises an bloggers’ close attention as there are many potential ramifications. Among these, the possible disappearance of traditional email marketing as we know it. Feel free to get in touch if you want my mind on the topic.

Kik’s founder Ted Livingston made the statement: Facebook will roll out ? Bot Store ? on 12 April, which will toggle an in-depth transformation in the way businesses interact with people.

? Bot store ?, what about that?

A bot is nothing but a digital robot able to deal with complex queries while interacting with users. With ? Bot Store ?, brands wil have the abitily to integrate bots within Messenger that can interact with people to help them access information in no time plus buying in Messenger. How? Ask the bot and pay. Easy peasy, dear.

It is not by chance that KLM announced this last week.

As you might know, Facebook has been very busy building a robust platform for professionals these past months. The professional version of the social network Facebook at Work is to be rolled out this year. As regards Messenger, the objective is the following: creating an application ecosystem to make the initial messaging a platform overall. The ? Bot Store ? comes as part of this strategy.

So... for example?

Need a ride? It might be something like: ask Uber’s bot —which by the way announced a partnership with Facebook last December— and you'll get a straightforward car, price and time suggestion. Request more if you want to hone your search. The more you interact with the AI-based bot, the better it knows you. Bots allow you to book rides, restaurants, follow shipments, ask for train schedules and there is so, so much more to come. Bots will deal with highly complex queries. But more to know after actual testing.

The set-up of these bots will drastically cut brakes to access information while helping people get rid of time-consuming and boring tasks through the purchasing process. Why should you be visiting a website, searching for a product, adding to a basket, dealing with personal and payment information to buy something when you can ask a bot to do the job outright. Will it still be relevant to have a website? You will soon need strong arguments...

Parallel with M

In August 2015, Messaging Products's VP David Marcus unveiled M, an AI-based personal digital assistant Facebook has been working on that will allow Messenger users to have a digital robot carrying out a set of tasks.

Palo Alto’s teams have been busy day in day out on the service since then. M will be to consumers what ? Bot Store ? might be to enterprises.

Bots = 2016's breakthrough

The democratisation of bots will rapidly make a number of existing apps and websites partially (totally?) obsolete with the value proposition to be offered within Messenger. This should already bring developers to rethink the way they approach application development. Next week's announcement will be nothing but a milestone.

And competition is not waiting for F8...

New inter-enterprise collaborative tools that Facebook at Work will bring to strengthen the solid existing advertising solution —that keeps renewing itself with plently of new features regularly— and enhanced customer relationship management tools to come within Messenger will shake up company's codes.

Unrivalled strike force

The thing is this: 1,6 billion monthly active users (MAU) on Facebook, over 900 million MAU on Messenger, 1 human being in 7 connecting to Facebook daily. The social network giant's strike force is gigantic.

The roll-out of ? Bot store ? will mark the beginning of a new era in social messaging. Why? As of very soon, it will not be only human-to-human interactions in Messenger any more. Keep your ears and eyes peeled to get your business on board early enough.