YC AI

YC is starting an AI specific accelerator. Good news for AI in general. But Bot companies will definitely have to invest more and more into making bots more intelligent. Here’s a quote that even we found a little scary (for humankind): “Robot arms exist, but are difficult to set up. When things break, they don’t understand what went wrong. As a result, humans are still *leveraged* to assemble products like an iPhone.”  😨

Chatbots and Social Media: New Research

Every day we get asked for benchmarks, case studies, example KPIs, but the truth is--we’re all still learning. These industry standards are just beginning to crystalize as more data becomes available. And here’s an example of one. Interesting things to take note of are the top challenges marketers are worried about  when implementing bots are, in order: 1. Integrating it into the existing technology. 2. Training employees, 3. Difficulty interpreting results, 4. Cost of implementation. Are you equipped to take these on?

Don't Send Your Selfies to This Creepy Chatbot for Teens

This bot, originally billed as a Tamagotchi in bot-form on Product Hunt, and the article itself, are such an interesting little view into the realities of launching a bot. For starters--what the heck is this bot even for? And yet it’s getting tons of traction. And sure the founders are likely collecting tons of valuable (and creepy) marketing-worthy data on its users--what piques our interest is the data of how people are responding to it. The founder (who we met at a Botness event and is actually quite genuine) claims that the reason the bot demands a selfie from its users is because--well--people were sending them anyway. So the bot creators are--in essence--doing the right thing and following “bot protocol” which is adjusting the conversation design based on how users interact with it. But it’s tapping into a behavior that’s so inherently “teen” that it runs the risk of being off putting to any other demographic. Case-in-point, this article. Is this an indicator that “teens” will “get” bots the most? Is this the fate of bot creators to come?

100 Best Bots For Brands & Businesses - TOPBOTS

Nice little alliterative list. Extra nice to see a couple Reply-powered bots make it. But somewhat surprised to see so many in the Media and Commerce categories. Are any of these really nailing it do you think? Seems media in particular still hasn’t managed to shake its RSS Feed-to-bot early days. And Commerce still feels a little...forced (other than the Casper Bot. We love that one). Who do you think should’ve made the list? Biggest takeaway for us is the indicators of who are the early adopters from an industry standpoint. 

Buoy Health

Hypochondriacs can now freak out via messaging! This bot helps diagnose your symptoms. Nice to see someone take on the Everest-level legal hurdles associated with *that.* How long till Big Pharma licenses it?