Business Chatbots Taking Over

Robert Duffner Interviews Chris Kemp, NASA, and Kevin Jackson, NJVC, on GovCloud

By G C Network | November 7, 2010

Recently, I had the pleasure of being interviewed by Mr. Robert Duffner, director of Product Management for Windows Azure, as part of his “Thought Leaders in the Cloud” series. In this interview,…

NJVC, Invertix Announce Cloud Computing Demonstration at GEOINT 2010

By G C Network | November 2, 2010

VIENNA, Va. — (BUSINESS WIRE) — NJVC®, one of the largest providers of information technology (IT) solutions to the U.S. Department of Defense, and Invertix Corporation, a proven technology company…

On The Frontlines: Cloud Computing in Government

By G C Network | October 27, 2010

Today, Trezza Media Group released the latest installment of it’s “On The Frontlines” series of government technology reports. The “On The Frontlines” Publications are dedicated to showcasing the positive progress…

GSA Awards Eleven US Federal IaaS Contracts

By G C Network | October 20, 2010

According to Federal News Radio, GSA awarded eleven vendor spots in the first Federal cloud infrastructure-as-a-service award. The winners were: * Apptis Inc. partnered with Amazon Web Services* AT&T* Autonomic…

NIST To Hold 2nd Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop

By G C Network | October 15, 2010

On November 4-5, 2010, the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will hold their second Cloud Computing Forum & Workshop. During this event, NIST will report on the status of federal…

“On The Frontlines” Interview

By G C Network | October 5, 2010

Look out for  “On The Frontlines: The Government Cloud” scheduled for release in November 2010! Trezza Media Group provides high-quality thought leadership media and marketing services to help companies connect…

Yongsan Army Garrison Does Cloud Computing!!

By G C Network | September 24, 2010

First Signal is ready for the cloud ! Even with the time constraints of the Chusok holiday and the onslaught of a 100-year flood, the class soldiered on with five…

Army Cloud Computing in Korea!

By G C Network | September 19, 2010

After a long uneventful flight, I’ve arrived at Yongsan Army Garrison in Soeul Korea. After enjoying the economy accomodation on a Boeing 777 for over 14 hours, my room and…

The Taiwan GovCloud

By G C Network | September 11, 2010

Last week, Henry Kenyon of Federal Computer Week reported that the Taiwanese government is planning to spend $744M to develop cloud computing technology. Premier Den-yih Wu sees this as a…

Geospatial Cloud Computing In Support Of National Policy

By G C Network | August 29, 2010

A few weeks ago I once again had the pleasure of participating in a private discussion on cloud computing with Mr. Vivek Kundra.  What struck me in this most recent meeting was his views…

Chat apps characteristics make them very appealing to businesses and marketers. Prominent ones include their size, user retention, usage rates, and user demographics. In fact, the combined user base of the top four chat apps is larger than that of the top four social networks. Chat apps also have higher retention and usage rates than most mobile apps. Finally, the majority of their users are young, an extremely important demographic for brands, advertisers and publishers.


These chat app traits have accelerated the blending of artificial intelligence and business service functions to create the modern chatbot. Recent advances in this area include:
  • A chatbot’s ability to conduct engaging human conversations which has allowed businesses to leverage the inexpensive and wide-reaching technology to engage with more consumers; 
  • The greater suitability of chatbots with mobile devices;
  •  The robust and rapid evolution of the chatbot ecosystem which include third-party chat bots, native bots, distribution channels, and a new marketplace for its enabling technology; and
  •  A promising chatbot business model for messaging apps and the developers who build bots for these platforms. 


A surprising example of this embryonic business model is my own 21 year-old daughter! Known as Ljskater_X_Void on Twitch, she uses an entire team of chatbots to manage her online audience: 

  • A customized Ankhbot (referred to as LjskaterxVoidBot) to interact with Twitch stream using a coin system to manage audience 
  • Discord Chatbot for managing streaming audience requests through ankhbot commands
  • Discord Music bot that lets audience request song from You Tube to be played during the stream
  • Quorra bot used to collect requests from stream audience
  • Ankhbot Social media timers to solicit interaction from audience through Twitter
  • Floof bot used to gather detailed information on individuals
  • Master Overwatch bot for collecting and displaying game 
  • Mee6 bot used to cross promote and advertise streaming partnersstatistics
  • NadekoBot used to create master bot (On Discord referred to as Skaterbot) to manage all the other bots
  • Muxybot connects through Discord to announce streaming events and stats



For technology support in the enterprise business space, a Watson-enabled Slack chatbotis being used to help enterprise teams identify and fix IT and network operational incidents. This bot blends messaging, cloud computing, IT support and network operations in order to improve customer service. To accelerate its own chatbot business, IBM has released a Watson Botkit middleware plugin that allows the Watson Conversation service to talk to Slack and other messaging channels.

Information technology is not the only industry vertical deploying chatbots:
  • News Industry uses chatbots to deliver breaking news directly as a private message in the user’s messenger. This information is displayed at login. 
  • A 3D printing industry chatbot that receives a 3D file and then instantly searches for 3D printing services providing you with price quotes and material options.
  •  With a chatbot implemented, entertainment industry customers can find movie and event details about movies and events, finding available timings, booking a reservation, and initiating cancellation much easier and faster without human assistance. It has also increased the business of online movie ticket and event ticket booking.
  • Health bots can answer more than 100 health questions, provides recommendations based on the query and even help to find a nearby doctor.
  • E-commerce companies use bots to provide product suggestions, price alerts, gift assistance and more
  • Customer service bots are replacing human assistance with the automated message service.
  • In the travel industry a bot can reduce the work load by sending ticket confirmation details, check in notifications, and other such important information automatically to the customer.


If chatbots are now in your business future, you should try Cognitive Concierge a part of IBM’s chatbot ecosystem that makes recommendations to the user based on a conversation with the application’s chatbot.


This post was brought to you by IBM Global Technology Services. For more content like this, visit ITBizAdvisor.com

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