Does Conversation Hurt Or Help The Chatbot UX? – Smashing Magazine

Interesting article that explores the role (and need?) of actual conversational skills in a chatbot. Our belief is the purpose of a chatbot is the service it provides, sure it can have personality, but ultimately the real potential of these things is in their utility. Save the chit chat for, I don’t know, humans? 

UPS Launches Chatbot (UPS) | Investopedia

We love this bot. It is exactly the reason we got into bot making--it takes something super annoying and tedious, and makes it slightly less so with technology 😍 Just the beginning, but more of this please! Oh, also, it cost $1B to make internally.

This is how Chatbots will Kill 99% of Apps

Great rundown of the app-ocalypse. Loved the breakdown of areas bots will have the biggest impact, in particular where Apps failed the most: One Time Use Cases. Bots can dominate here. Sure some apps have a place in this bot dominated future, but for the rest--bye Felicia.

Facebook opens analytics and FbStart to developers of the 34,000 bots on Messenger

Analytics = crucial for bot creators. Since really it’s a game of listening, learning, optimizing. Interesting thing about this isn’t just that Facebook is opening up its analytics for Bots, but it’s also hinting at including other, competing (if you can call it that) messaging platforms in its analytics, too. Go figure!

10 Bot Building platforms and why you need to build a bot for your business (Part 1)

Not a shameless plug--this is a call for feedback. Would love to hear from our readers how they view the bot-building platform space, what are they most interested in? 

Forksy

A chatbot that helps you change unhealthy eating habits 

Visa Bot

Bot that helps hopeful immigrants navigate the quagmire of the immigration process. We need all the help we can get in Trump’s America

Obsidian.ai

Opsidian helps you monitor and manage your AWS Infrastructure from Slack