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Sairam Vedam
Sairam Vedam

The document discusses the rise of conversational commerce powered by bots. It predicts that by 2020, bots will facilitate 40% of mobile interactions and transactions as the post-app era begins. Several companies like Microsoft, Facebook, and Slack are shifting their focus to bots and chat-based platforms. Bots allow brands to have intuitive, intelligent, and contextual conversations with billions of users on messaging platforms. This shifts business operations to a new model of conversational commerce where micro-moments can be tapped into through bots.

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COLUMN By Sairam Vedam The BOTTheory Has the time come to say goodbye to apps? Gartner report on ‘top predictions for 2016 and beyond’ says that, by 2020, autonom ous software agents outside o f hu m an control will participate in 5% o f all econom ic transactions. T he sam e report goes on to predict that by 2020, sm art agents will facilitate 40% o f m obile interactions, and the post- app era will begin to dom inate. T his phenom enon in the technology industry across the world confirm that we are at the m om ent o f inflection. M arketers and brands both needs to be wary of: ■ On M arch 31 2016, Satya Nadella, M icrosoft CEO, com m unicated that conversation as a platform is the future. ■ O n April 12 2016, Facebook announced a new m ech an ism for brands to build their own chatbots for Facebook M essenger. O ne o f the ideas is to turn M essenger into an e-com m erce hub, w here people can buy things directly from bots m ade by big brands. M ark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, disclosed that he was routinely using ‘bots’ - sm art software applications - on Facebook M essenger. ■ Slack, a next generation chat software company, intends to ease the way users connect in an enterprise. It announced U SD 80 m illion fund to invest in startups that build software that integrates with Slack. It also launched the Slack App Directory, a catalog o f 150 chat bots and Slack integrations. ■ O n New Year’s Eve o f 2016, 8.08 billion ‘red envelopes’ (a bot to transfer m oney virtually) w ere sen t via W eChat, w hereas PayPal processed 'a m ere’ 4.9 billion transactions in the entire year 2015. W hile these indicate the shift from an appworld to the bot world, what it m eans to the world of digital and com m erce is m ore interesting. Business in the digital world has now a new fulcrum o f operations called Conversational Com m erce. Why is this shift happening? W orld over, a total o f 3 billion people are chatting across different m essengers from W hatsApp to W echat and Line. Im agine the reach for brands if all these users interactively, instantly and intelligently converse ju st like they would do on the shop floor. Today that is a reality. W elcom e to conversational com m erce, powered by bots. Historically, idea o f chatterbots/chatbots/bots is not new. In fact, it has its fam ous origins to the Alan Turing days itself. W ikipedia says, “a chatterbot (also known as a talkbot, chatbot, Bot, chatterbox, Artificial Conversational Entity) is a com puter program w hich conducts a conversation via auditory or textual m ethods. Such program s are often 24 CIO&LEADER O ctober 2016
designed to convincingly sim ulate how a hum an would behave as a conversational partner, thereby passing the Turing test.’’ Bots are the new Apps! OS is not the new platform anym ore. The m obileOS+App com bination has already becom e redundant. T he reason is the num ber o f apps that an average user wants, uses and sticks has becom e lim ited. In addition to this, the apps have no universal interface that can be consistent throughout the user demography. But, bots can be sim ple and constant considering it is built on a sim ple and com mon m essenger platform that can look alike to all the billion users there. However, there are six conversational aspects Bots can enable for your brands: ■ Conversations are hum an: They are instant and emotional. Bots can exactly replicate that. Window o f possibility for an user to make a decision, get a query answered, switch to a better option - all happens in the sam e instance - bots can enhance brands ability to achieve consum er stickiness ■ Conversations are interlinked: They are instant and em otional. Bots can exactly replicate that. W indow o f possibility for an user to m ake a decision, get a query answered, sw itch to a better option - all happens in the sam e instan ce - bots can enhan ce brands ability to achieve con su m er stickiness ■ Conversations are intuitive: Smart agents popup to ensure you have an advice, suggestion and a friendly face (smiley) - bots can ensure brands becom e friends ■ Conversations are intelligent: M achine learning helps bots to replicate intelligent conversations - bots can make brands becom e more predictive ■ Conversations are inherently social: -• Conversations by nature tap into collective intelligence that can influence buying patterns. Bots can leverage A1 to ensure crowd sourced buying happens. T his increases brand virality. ■ Conversations can be contextual: W hat you discuss with a friend could be different from what you would with a stranger. W hat you would ask could be m ighty different from what you wotdd share. Bots can enable privileged conversations. W hile you want to have different levels o f conversations with different privileges, a friend bot could be different from an inform ative bot. Bot first strategy - Websites might be dead T h ere m igh t be a day very soon w here bu sin esses, sm all/big, will be able to open a m essen g er account than a w ebsite. Becau se a sim ple m essen ger account integrated with bot can give you instan t access to billions o f users at one go. It is already happening on W eChat in China Four platforms to watch out for in the Bot world Siri, Cortana, Echo and Google. All the four have th eir un iqu e offerings that can take charge o f your personal life to the living room to your shopping, travel and a lot m ore. They are tran sform in g them selves to platform s allow ing their A PIs to be extended and m o st im portantly they can do both text and speech. Conversational com m erce is about m icrom om ents- Are your bots in place to tap into them ? According to Forrester, the world o f custom er experience is all about personalization. H ence, a tectonic shift is happening. Since conversations can be spawned and ended in a split second, the ability to tap into the m icrom om en t w hen a hum an typically converses is very im portant. It is a huge and untapped m arket opportunity for brands. Today’s m achine learning allows these m icrom om en ts to be captured. Conversational com m erce is about instant conversion- D efine your bot strategy and Act on it, now. ■ — The author is VP e[ Global Head - Marketing ,Cigniti Technologies. CIO&LEADER O ctober 2016 25

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  • 1. COLUMN By Sairam Vedam The BOTTheory Has the time come to say goodbye to apps? Gartner report on ‘top predictions for 2016 and beyond’ says that, by 2020, autonom ous software agents outside o f hu m an control will participate in 5% o f all econom ic transactions. T he sam e report goes on to predict that by 2020, sm art agents will facilitate 40% o f m obile interactions, and the post- app era will begin to dom inate. T his phenom enon in the technology industry across the world confirm that we are at the m om ent o f inflection. M arketers and brands both needs to be wary of: ■ On M arch 31 2016, Satya Nadella, M icrosoft CEO, com m unicated that conversation as a platform is the future. ■ O n April 12 2016, Facebook announced a new m ech an ism for brands to build their own chatbots for Facebook M essenger. O ne o f the ideas is to turn M essenger into an e-com m erce hub, w here people can buy things directly from bots m ade by big brands. M ark Zuckerberg, Facebook CEO, disclosed that he was routinely using ‘bots’ - sm art software applications - on Facebook M essenger. ■ Slack, a next generation chat software company, intends to ease the way users connect in an enterprise. It announced U SD 80 m illion fund to invest in startups that build software that integrates with Slack. It also launched the Slack App Directory, a catalog o f 150 chat bots and Slack integrations. ■ O n New Year’s Eve o f 2016, 8.08 billion ‘red envelopes’ (a bot to transfer m oney virtually) w ere sen t via W eChat, w hereas PayPal processed 'a m ere’ 4.9 billion transactions in the entire year 2015. W hile these indicate the shift from an appworld to the bot world, what it m eans to the world of digital and com m erce is m ore interesting. Business in the digital world has now a new fulcrum o f operations called Conversational Com m erce. Why is this shift happening? W orld over, a total o f 3 billion people are chatting across different m essengers from W hatsApp to W echat and Line. Im agine the reach for brands if all these users interactively, instantly and intelligently converse ju st like they would do on the shop floor. Today that is a reality. W elcom e to conversational com m erce, powered by bots. Historically, idea o f chatterbots/chatbots/bots is not new. In fact, it has its fam ous origins to the Alan Turing days itself. W ikipedia says, “a chatterbot (also known as a talkbot, chatbot, Bot, chatterbox, Artificial Conversational Entity) is a com puter program w hich conducts a conversation via auditory or textual m ethods. Such program s are often 24 CIO&LEADER O ctober 2016
  • 2. designed to convincingly sim ulate how a hum an would behave as a conversational partner, thereby passing the Turing test.’’ Bots are the new Apps! OS is not the new platform anym ore. The m obileOS+App com bination has already becom e redundant. T he reason is the num ber o f apps that an average user wants, uses and sticks has becom e lim ited. In addition to this, the apps have no universal interface that can be consistent throughout the user demography. But, bots can be sim ple and constant considering it is built on a sim ple and com mon m essenger platform that can look alike to all the billion users there. However, there are six conversational aspects Bots can enable for your brands: ■ Conversations are hum an: They are instant and emotional. Bots can exactly replicate that. Window o f possibility for an user to make a decision, get a query answered, switch to a better option - all happens in the sam e instance - bots can enhance brands ability to achieve consum er stickiness ■ Conversations are interlinked: They are instant and em otional. Bots can exactly replicate that. W indow o f possibility for an user to m ake a decision, get a query answered, sw itch to a better option - all happens in the sam e instan ce - bots can enhan ce brands ability to achieve con su m er stickiness ■ Conversations are intuitive: Smart agents popup to ensure you have an advice, suggestion and a friendly face (smiley) - bots can ensure brands becom e friends ■ Conversations are intelligent: M achine learning helps bots to replicate intelligent conversations - bots can make brands becom e more predictive ■ Conversations are inherently social: -• Conversations by nature tap into collective intelligence that can influence buying patterns. Bots can leverage A1 to ensure crowd sourced buying happens. T his increases brand virality. ■ Conversations can be contextual: W hat you discuss with a friend could be different from what you would with a stranger. W hat you would ask could be m ighty different from what you wotdd share. Bots can enable privileged conversations. W hile you want to have different levels o f conversations with different privileges, a friend bot could be different from an inform ative bot. Bot first strategy - Websites might be dead T h ere m igh t be a day very soon w here bu sin esses, sm all/big, will be able to open a m essen g er account than a w ebsite. Becau se a sim ple m essen ger account integrated with bot can give you instan t access to billions o f users at one go. It is already happening on W eChat in China Four platforms to watch out for in the Bot world Siri, Cortana, Echo and Google. All the four have th eir un iqu e offerings that can take charge o f your personal life to the living room to your shopping, travel and a lot m ore. They are tran sform in g them selves to platform s allow ing their A PIs to be extended and m o st im portantly they can do both text and speech. Conversational com m erce is about m icrom om ents- Are your bots in place to tap into them ? According to Forrester, the world o f custom er experience is all about personalization. H ence, a tectonic shift is happening. Since conversations can be spawned and ended in a split second, the ability to tap into the m icrom om en t w hen a hum an typically converses is very im portant. It is a huge and untapped m arket opportunity for brands. Today’s m achine learning allows these m icrom om en ts to be captured. Conversational com m erce is about instant conversion- D efine your bot strategy and Act on it, now. ■ — The author is VP e[ Global Head - Marketing ,Cigniti Technologies. CIO&LEADER O ctober 2016 25