One of the biggest emerging technologies of 2016 was artificial intelligence (AI), with chatbots (or just ‘bots’) on the back of it. We saw the release of Amazon’s Alexa voice assistant, quickly followed by Google Home. Microsoft released their Bot Framework.
It felt like every day some tech giant or bootstrapped startup was announcing something new.
But did the hype of 2016 detract from a larger, more fundamental trend? A trend that started with SMS text messaging and will eventually lead to chat (or the ‘conversational interface’) being at the heart of how we communicate with businesses in the future?
A warm, personal welcome
Let’s take a look at Match.com (the UK version), so far flying under the radar in terms of innovation in the core chatbot/AI space. Yet, they quietly released an intriguing and strangely compelling innovation recently, a web chatbot. (To test it, you have to visit the main page and wait around a bit.)
This essentially replaces a sign-up form. But, why? In my experience, it just feels more natural. They gave the chatbot some personality, and it feels far more instinctive than tabbing through form fields. Before you know it, you’ve volunteered all the info Match.com needs to set you up with a profile.
Is this really a trend?
But what evidence do we have that this is a trend, rather than some isolated brilliance by Match.com? Well, other big names are deploying web chatbots too such as Thomson Holidays, the UK tour operator. They’re testing a web bot as an entry point into their own site (with arguably less success than Match.com).
Adrian Zumbrunnen, a UX/UI Designer from Zurich, has even used a conversational web bot to replace…