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Bot creation platform API.AI announced last week its launch of one-click integrations, which enable developers to more easily convert bots for use on chat platforms like Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Kik.
With this capability, bots on different platforms can “share knowledge” with each other via machine learning, thereby cutting down on developer costs and time spent on building and maintaining these bots.
For context, platforms such as Messenger and Slack have different natural language processing (NLP) platforms. That means developers need to build different bots for each channel. By allowing bots to “share knowledge” between platforms, developers need to train their bots only once, making it easier to build complex apps with growing capabilities. This could result in a massive ramp-up in the number of high-functioning intelligent apps and bots hitting the market.
Apple, for instance, bought machine-learning company Turi earlier this month, likely with the intention of building machine learning into Swift, Apple’s proprietary programming language. This would make it easier for developers to build apps with artificial intelligence (AI) capabilities. Because machine learning enables software to better itself, maintenance costs will be lower, which means that publishers will need fewer developers and data scientists.
Building the enabling technology into a software framework will also improve the overall user experience. Thus far, the enabling technology available to developers has been relatively unsophisticated, at times leading to a disappointing user experience.
Some platforms are starting to change this. Facebook’s Messenger Platform, for instance, provides access to tools for building basic chatbots, and its bot engine — built with the same highly sophisticated AI software that Facebook used to create M, its virtual assistant — enables developers to create far more intelligent virtual agents, capable of utilizing machine learning to vastly improve interactions with consumers.