Facebook Messenger Platform beta release with chatbots
Facebook will now allow businesses to deliver automated customer support, e-commerce guidance, content and interactive experiences through chatbots. By providing utility through its huge developer and business ecosystem, Facebook could boost loyalty with Messenger, one-up SMS and keep up with chat competitors like Kik, Line and Telegram that have their own bot platforms.The official name for the platform is “bots on Messenger” launch at F8.
How Messenger bots work
Through the Messenger Platform’s new Send/Receive API, bots can send more than just text. They will be able to respond with structured messages that include images, links and call to action buttons. These could let users make a restaurant reservation, review an e-commerce order and more. You can swipe through product carousels and pop out to the web to pay for a purchase.
Importantly, Facebook’s Messenger Platform currently doesn’t allow payments directly through a credit card added to Messenger.
A new persistent search bar at the top of Messenger will help people discover bots. For companies already connecting with customers over SMS, a phone-number matching tool will let them easily shift those conversations to people’s Messenger account instead, thanks to a partnership with Twilio. To keep people on control, a block button appears at the top of every bot conversation so you can easily silence them.
Developers will be able to build their own bots or work with Facebook’s bot-building partners. But Facebook also has its own Bot Engine built on its acquisition of natural language interface startup Wit.ai. Based on the same system Facebook uses to teach its own artificial intelligence M, developers can feed the Bot Engine sample conversations and it will learn how to handle similar conversations on its own.