Facts about chatbot

A chatbot is an AI-based program that answers your questions or does the job you order. Commercially Chatbots are used for the clients of the companies, where the clients get help through a virtual assistant. Chatbots are used by almost every company today. In America, 33% of clients switch companies due to late instances. Due to late instances companies in America have to lose $62 billion. That’s why to juice up the services companies use Chatbots.

Chatbots are also used by common people. Chatbots are the one that automatically replies to your chat, even if you are not available. People feel rude when you don’t reply even after receiving the message, so a chatbot will reply to it that I am not available so that the other person comes to know that you are busy.

But the question arises that how this happens? Is it safe? And many more every question will be answered in this blog. This blog contains all the necessary information chatbot that you should know. It will help you decide whether you should use a chatbot or not, if yes then what are the advantages and disadvantages.

Why Chatbots are important?

Chatbots play a vital role in the company’s services and response team. The advanced chatbots that are used today are very intelligent and can reply to your questions within no time. 51℅ clients or users back off and switch companies due to late response. This amount of 51% is huge and companies cannot afford such a huge loss. If the company’s responses are good then they will be recommended to many others. So that you can excel in business.

For example, if you are dealing with your boss, so faster responses create a nice impression. They are important for your health too. At nights when you receive messages they can help in replying as you don’t wake up and chat back.

Make your chatbot and earn

Chatbots are preprogrammed to deliver a certain set of replies to a certain set of chats or queries. The language used for programming is mostly python. 

If you are curious about creating one, then learn python and sketch the first prototype. Try on and get the next better every time. This will help you grow your knowledge about chatbots and once successes you can sell your chatbot to earn more from it. As there are many people around to save their money they’ll opt for you if your product can give constant services. You can also earn by doing freelance work in marketing a chat, testing, guiding, and many more but all these need skills to make from it. 

When was the chatbot introduced?

The chatbot was invented in 1966 by MIT professor Joseph Weizenbaum. It was not that intelligent as it was just a computer program. Later on, many chatbots were invented and in the year 2009 a Chinese company named WeChat came up with an advanced chatbot.

Reason for inventing in the chatbot?

The purpose of inventing a chatbot is to ease out some workload from the response of a company, and nowadays to make our life easy. 

Before chatbots were invented to provide information everything was manually a person used to text back. It’s not simple for a person to sit in front of the computer and answering the same questions again n again. This leads to the need for a computer program to get the job done within seconds.

Before chatbots, there were fewer options to check mental health, book an appointment and all they we do today. All this need to ease job lead us to invent more such tech.

Evolution of chatbots 

1. After Joseph weizenbaum’s chatbot, there were many more professional coders working for chatbots. It was not a 1 day evolution years passed and many prototypes were displayed. Every bot was better than the previous one.
2. After ELIZA, a new chatbot was introduced by Kenneth Colby in 1972. It was made to interact with mental patients. Kenneth worked on this project to death. He wanted to know how computers can let us know about mental illness.
3. Then comes Jabberwacky made for chatting in an entertaining manner. It was created in 1988 by Rollo Carpenter.
4. Dr. Sbaitso another upgrade to the chatbots. It was one of the initiatives to integrate AI with chatbots. It was able to recognize the voice and respond accordingly. 
5. A.L.I.C.E ( Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity). It was the first chatbot to run on a computer as ALICE. It learned and matched the pattern between the conversation. The program is based on AIML ( Artificial Intelligence Markup Language).
6. The smarter child was the next to carry the mantle of chatbots. It was developed in 2001 and can be called as the frame of Siri. Later on Microsoft also followed. But it had a con it was only available for AOL IM and MSN messenger. It mainly targeted 18- 24 year youths with it’s a fun way of conversation.  
7. In the year 2010 apple has blown everybody’s mind with it’s personal assistant, Siri. It uses natural language in conversations. This laid the foundation for many other companies like Microsoft and many more to come up with their personal assistant.
8.  In the year 2012 google came up with it’s personal assistant Google now, in 2014 Microsoft launched Cortana. And the last and the most advanced Alexa came up in the year 2014. Today Alexa is the most intelligent chatbot. It can be used in may ways some of them are listed below

• Recipes 
• Stories
• News
• Songs
• YouTube player

It can be connected to our smart devices to get the best experience.

How they help us?

If the company’s responses are good then they will be recommended to many others. So that you can excel in business. They help us to keep our chat organized. Mostly chatbots read answers in yes or no. So when we answer yes or no we get 2 specific answers. Also, it helps in replying to the queries. Nowadays the advanced chatbots like Siri, Cortana, and many more all these chatbots have voice recognition and take this experience to next level. It helps us to be more productive and concentrated by replying the hundreds of regular messages. Today Alexa can control our smart devices with our instructions, this is the best help we got till now.

• What work can a chatbot do?

The chatbot can do work to an extent, all that depends on the client’s chats. As they are preprogrammed for some set of questions, they can clear doubts, browsing, playing a song on YouTube, and many more. But previously it was not possible as they were not so intelligent and AI-based.

Multiples companies came up with their chatbots providing various services. All are meant to be used in different work sectors. For example, at home, we don’t need a formal chatbot, so it replies in a friendly way. If you are in the office it will be more formal. Likewise, it provides a great experience.

For what needs chatbots fits the best?

Chatbots best fits in a queries type of conversation. For example

• Booking tickets
• Asking to browse some information
• Play music

All these things chatbots are ideally known for. You can also write codes of your chatbot using programming languages and machine learning. 

For example, you can ask it to switch on/off the lights. If you are on a ride to an unknown place it can guide you to reach your destination.

Which chatbot is best to use?

All chatbots are almost the same, they differ in the services they provide. There is no issue with late responses as they are meant to do that within seconds. All you need to pick one based on your needs. Custom-made or normal chatbots whichever fits best pick one. If you opt for a custom made then it’s better to check out their services and make a decision.

• Machine needed

It fits in all the machines as they are just a set of code. Once integrated with your messenger app or websites you can use it. No matter which type of machine you have. 

How to install a chatbot?

Chatbots at easy to install, they merge with any messaging services and also your websites. The installation of chatbot steps are like this

• Go to settings. 
• Open integration panel
• Open chat widget
• Click on publish the bot
• Copy the code 
• Paste code before </body> tag
• Once pasted refresh the page.
• You can see the chat icon in the lower right corner.

Now you knew how to install a chatbot?

If you have a custom-made chatbot then the steps are the same but the codes will be different. Don’t forget to paste the code before this tag </body>. Pasting before or after this tag will be a wrong code and your software couldn’t be able to read it.

• Are chatbots costly?

There is a custom-made chatbot costing around $300000, yes it’s true. The chatbots made from scratch can you around it. But if you have chatbots codes and want to add some more features then it can cost you around $40000. I know it’s costly but they are custom made only for the clients.

If your budget is tight and wants a chatbot at a low cost then it can cost you around $1000, depends on your needs.

• Can chatbot replace the normal chat?

Chatbots can reply to messages to an extent. As they are preprogrammed for a certain set of chats. They fail in replying if you ask something out of the box. You cannot chat like humans to a chatbot. It’s great for asking for easy jobs. If you ask her to do your job or homework then it will throw the same chats rather than doing your job. Some clients have to be treated personally, in such an opportunity chatbots don’t fits the job. Also when you need to be more technical about something human chats are on the upper hand.

• How chatbot saves money?

Chatbot has replaced a person sitting on a PC and replying to messages. It is cost worthy and easy to install. 

• How it is good for your health?

Sitting in front of pc, for hours working on it. Then when it comes to chatting the same thing not only makes it irritating but also affects our eyes. When the bot does your work you don’t need to worry about chats. Your eyes are safe. Also, the rays emitted are harmful and can cause headaches, sleep issues, and many more. Likewise, it helps us to stay away from pc or mobiles for some time. It also helps you to avoid irritating clients who have habits to ask hundreds of questions. 

• What is better than a chatbot?

Nothing till now is able to replace chatbots. A person can never be so fast and efficient to handle such a huge amount of clients at a time. In the future, there can be a substitute for a chatbot but today nothing fits better than a chatbot.

What is the future of chatbots?

The future of this can be anything that we must have ever taught about. There can be one Jarvis like the Ironman movie, to solve every question of ours. Everything is possible through tech. Now chatbots are accessed to voice recognition to know who is talking. In the future, Artificial Intelligence can be the mainstream to explore more. Helping robots who can talk back like humans can be an ideal example for chatbots integrated with AI and robotics. Chatbot documentation is also going to trend in 2021 and beyond. If you are interested to learn about chatbot documentation consider joining Information Developers Foundation training.

Conclusion

So here I have provided every single piece of information regarding chatbots. All your questions are answered. The chatbot is a great tech example, for us to know that we need to know that there is still more to come in chatbots. Evolution to installation and also which one to buy is explained. 

Chatbots are not only good for physical health but also for mental strength. Still have some doubts ask in the comments we will happy to answer you.

About the Author:

This article is written by Gautam Sabbani a team member of the Information Developers Foundation.