Existing chatbots

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What is a chatbot? They come in two flavors: • Virtual assistants, which help you find information, remember stuff, or buy things. Think Apple’s Siri, Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana, and Google’s Assistant. These are powered by machine learning, meaning they rely on artificial intelligence to learn and figure out what you want. • Messaging apps, which essentially allow businesses and brands to be online 24/7 providing customer support (e.g., instant responses, quick answers, complaint resolution). Think Facebook Messenger, Kik, WeChat, and Slack. These types of chatbots are only capable of interacting with users by following pre-programmed rules Virtual assistants:

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Apple’s Siri: siri is a virtual assistant that is part of Apple Inc.'s iOS, watchOS, macOS, tvOS and audioOS operating systems. The assistant uses voice queries and a natural-language user interface to answer questions, make recommendations, and perform actions by delegating requests to a set of Internet services. The software adapts to users' individual language usages, searches, and preferences, with continuing use. Returned results are individualized. Siri is a spin-off from a project originally developed by the SRI International Artificial Intelligence Center. Its speech recognition engine was provided by Nuance Communications, and Siri uses advanced machine learning technologies to function. Its original American, British, and Australian voice actors recorded their respective voices around 2005, unaware of the recordings' eventual usage in Siri. The voice assistant was released as an app for iOS in February 2010, and it was acquired by Apple two months later. Siri supports a wide range of user commands, including performing phone actions, checking basic information, scheduling events and reminders, handling device settings, searching the Internet, navigating areas, finding information on entertainment, and is able to engage with iOS-integrated apps. With the release of iOS 10 in 2016, Apple opened up limited third-party access to Siri, including third-party messaging apps, as well as payments, ride-sharing, and Internet calling apps. With the release of iOS 11, Apple updated Siri's voices for more clear, human voices, started supporting follow-up questions and language translation, and additional third-party actions. Siri is not open source.

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Amazon Alexa: Amazon Alexa, known simply as Alexa, is a virtual assistant developed by Amazon, first used in the Amazon Echo and the Amazon Echo Dot smart speakers developed by Amazon Lab126. It is capable of voice interaction, music playback, making to-do lists, setting alarms, streaming podcasts, playing audiobooks, and providing weather, traffic, sports, and other real-time information, such as news. Alexa can also control several smart devices using itself as a home automation system. Users are able to extend the Alexa capabilities by installing "skills" (additional functionality developed by third-party vendors, in other settings more commonly called apps such as weather programs and audio features). Most devices with Alexa allow users to activate the device using a wake-word (such as Alexa); other devices (such as the Amazon mobile app on iOS or Android) require the user to push a button to activate Alexa's listening mode. Currently, interaction and communication with Alexa are only available in English, German, French, Italian, Spanish, and Japanese. Source codes: https://github.com/alexa/

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Microsoft’s Cortana Cortana is a virtual assistant created by Microsoft for Windows 10, Windows 10 Mobile, Windows Phone 8.1, Invoke smart speaker, Microsoft Band, Surface Headphones, Xbox One, iOS, Android, Windows Mixed Reality, and Amazon Alexa. Cortana can set reminders, recognize natural voice without the requirement for keyboard input, and answer questions using information from the Bing search engine. Cortana is currently available in English, Portuguese, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese language editions, depending on the software platform and region in which it is used. Source codes: https://opensource.microsoft.com/?tag=cortana

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Google Assistant: Google Assistant is an artificial intelligence-powered virtual assistant developed by Google that is primarily available on mobile and smart home devices. Unlike the company's previous virtual assistant, Google Now, Google Assistant can engage in two-way conversations. Assistant initially debuted in May 2016 as part of Google's messaging app Allo, and its voice-activated speaker Google Home. After a period of exclusivity on the Pixel and Pixel XL smartphones, it began to be deployed on other Android devices in February 2017, including third-party smartphones and Android Wear (now Wear OS), and was released as a standalone app on the iOS operating system in May 2017. Alongside the announcement of a software development kit in April 2017, the Assistant has been, and is being, further extended to support a large variety of devices, including cars and third party smart home appliances. The functionality of the Assistant can also be enhanced by third-party developers. In 2017, Google Assistant was installed on more than 400 million devices. Users primarily interact with Google Assistant through natural voice, though keyboard input is also supported. In the same nature and manner as Google Now, the Assistant is able to search the Internet, schedule events and alarms, adjust hardware settings on the user's device, and show information from the user's Google account. Google has also announced that the Assistant will be able to identify objects and gather visual information through the device's camera, and support purchasing products and sending money, as well as identifying songs. At CES 2018, the first Assistant-powered smart displays (smart speakers with video screens) were announced, with the first one being released in July 2018. Google assistant SDK: https://developers.google.com/assistant/sdk/

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Messaging apps:

Facebook Messenger: Facebook Messenger (commonly known as Messenger) is a messaging app and platform. Originally developed as Facebook Chat in 2008, the company revamped its messaging service in 2010, and subsequently released standalone iOS and Android apps in August 2011. Over the years, Facebook has released new apps on a variety of different operating systems, launched a dedicated website interface, and separated the messaging functionality from the main Facebook app, requiring users to use the web interface or download one of the standalone apps. Users can send messages and exchange photos, videos, stickers, audio, and files, as well as react to other users' messages and interact with bots. The service also supports voice and video calling. The standalone apps support using multiple accounts, conversations with optional end-to-end encryption, and playing games. Build the Bot with facebook: https://developers.facebook.com/docs/messenger-platform/getting-started/quick-start#build

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Kik Messenger: Kik Messenger, commonly called Kik, is a freeware instant messaging mobile app from the Canadian company Kik Interactive, available free of charge on iOS and Android operating systems. It uses a smartphone's data plan or Wi-Fi to transmit and receive messages, photos, videos, sketches, mobile webpages, and other content after users register a username. Kik added promoted chats in 2014, which used bots to converse with users about promoted brands through keywords activating responses. The feature allows companies to communicate with more potential clients than would be possible manually. Promoted messages reach target audiences by gender, country and device. In April 2016, Kik added a bot store to its app, which allows users to order food or products through an automated chat. Third party companies release bots which will access the company's offerings. The bot shop added a web bubble (also known as "wubbles") feature to allow rich media content to be shared in conversation threads, as well as suggested responses and a feature allowing bots to be active in group threads. An update, released in September 2016, added concierge bots which can give users tips, tutorials, or recommendations within a specific brand. Kik Messenger bot source code: https://github.com/kikinteractive

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Wechat: Just in case your company decides to interact with the 1 billion monthly active users on WeChat. While most people are quite familiar with Facebook chatbot. The thought of doing something with WeChat can seem kind of daunting, Because it’s a Chinese software and you can’t just Google your way out if you’re stuck. https://open.wechat.com/cgi-bin/newreadtemplate?t=overseas_open/index

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Slack: Slack is an American cloud-based set of proprietary team collaboration tools and services, founded by Stewart Butterfield. Slack began as an internal tool used by his company, Tiny Speck, in the development of Glitch, a now defunct online game. The name is an acronym for "Searchable Log of All Conversation and Knowledge". Slack source code: https://github.com/slackhq