When Facebook launched its chatbot platform three months ago, the immediate hype was soon burst by a series of articles about how useless the first wave of bots were.
But slowly and surely, a massive wave of tens of thousands of developers and bigger companies have hatched bots that actually do real, meaningful things — from getting health tips from doctors, to getting personalized help with travel plans. We’ve been covering the news so far on our bots channel. At next week’s MobileBeat 2016 event on July 12-13, we’ll showcase a critical mass of bot activity. Once and for, it’ll prove that bots are coming in a big way. There’s no turning back now. Bottom line: Companies have to figure out what their bot strategy is.
[aditude-amp id="flyingcarpet" targeting='{"env":"staging","page_type":"article","post_id":1997050,"post_type":"vbevent","post_chan":"none","tags":null,"ai":false,"category":"none","all_categories":"bots,","session":"D"}']And this includes not only text-based bots on Facebook, but voice-based bots on platforms like Amazon and Siri.
Let’s start with Facebook’s initial launch partners in April. There were many — including players like Shopify, Expedia, and Fandango. But most of them didn’t actually have live bots ready to go when Facebook launched the platform. Over the past three months, though, they’ve been working away on their bots, and we’ll be showcasing several of them at MobileBeat 2016, some for the first time.
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At MobileBeat, we’ll also see one of the world’s largest pizza chains and one of the nation’s top grocery chains launch their bot strategies. We’ll hear from Wingstop, the chicken-wing restaurant chain, the first quick-service restaurant company to launch a bot on Facebook (Burger King originally said it was going to launch a bot, but hasn’t done so yet. And while Taco Bell launched a bot, it was solely on Slack). A leading national ticket-selling company will also launch its bot strategy at MobileBeat.
And we’ll see the first demo of a bot that runs a country’s public transportation system.
The list of new announcements at the event is too long to cover completely here, and we’re keeping many of them stealth until the event to respect companies’ launch plans. We’ll see new bots helping consumers and professionals do things in all sorts of areas: financial services, CRM, health, accounting, and travel industries. We’ll also see a host of new bot service provider companies: One offers end-to-end analytics for bots, another provides a Mailchimp-like service but for bots (cooler than it sounds, because it’s discovered a hyperpersonalized feature on Facebook), and several others offer robust and visually pleasing enterprise bots, including one that integrates nicely with Slack.
Finally, through deep-dive sessions, we’ll learn how brands and businesses are dealing with all the other important needs around bots, like customer service, when and when not to use natural language, the importance of personality, how to monetize (we’ll have one of the first big bot ad-monetization networks, Samba, on hand), how to do attribution, multivariate testing, design best practices, and how and when to integrate A.I.
The hottest area, by far, is travel – and that’s going to be reflected at MobileBeat 2016. Almost every major travel company will be represented at the event, including Priceline/Booking.com, Expedia, Hipmunk, AirBnB, TripAdvisor Trivago, and at least two new bot companies that are launching services at MobileBeat for the first time. For too long, travel companies have had to rely on Google for their leads. Google’s search engine is where most people type in their travel plans, and travel companies have found few alternatives — until now. With billions of consumers now spending more time in chat apps like Messenger, Whatsapp, Kik, and Line, travel companies are eager to engage them directly on those platforms through bots.
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Finally, we’ll see how voice, visual, and text conversational interfaces are all emerging quickly — and how some fast-moving companies like Wingstop plan to use any format that that their customers find most useful. Facebook boasts that tens of thousands of developers are building bots on Facebook Messenger, and that it already has 11,000 bots live — all within three months of launch. However, the voice conversational interface may be just as hot. Amazon’s Alexa has emerged from nowhere just a year and a half ago, and Amazon says tens of thousands of developers are working on the platform. Indeed, MobileBeat 2016 will be the first time that Amazon’s Rohit Prasad, vice president of Machine Learning for Alexa and Speech, will be presenting remotely — a sign that Amazon is starting to speak up about its prowess in natural language understanding.
If all that isn’t enough to make you want to come to MobileBeat, I don’t know what will. We’re tapping into all this developer activity by also hosting the first international botathon. Below is an updated agenda of the event. This is a pivotal time in technology, and I’m personally as excited as I’ve been about the state of innovation in mobile. Hope you are too. See you there!
Stay abreast of the latest news on bots, messaging, and A.I. from MobileBeat 2016. Read our coverage here.
MobileBeat Day 1 (July 12)
8:30 AM – 9:30 AM |
Registration |
9:30-9:45 AM |
Opening Remarks: Back to the Future Matt Marshall (VentureBeat) & Robert ‘The Botfather’ Hoffer |
9:45-10:05 AM |
Opening Keynote: A Bot to Run a Country Gabe Leydon, CEO (Machine Zone) Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder (VentureBeat) |
10:05-10:25 AM |
The commerce vision Josh Jacobs, President (Kik) Modertator: Veronica Belmont, Host / Writer / Producer “Dear Veronica” (Engadget) |
10:25-10:35 AM |
The state of Conversational Commerce, from the person who coined the term Chris Messina, Developer Experience Lead (Uber ) |
10:35-11:05 AM |
Networking Break |
11:05-11:35 AM |
Breakout Session: Analytics First, Action Second Peter Reinhardt, CEO (Segment); Sean Reagan, Head of Product Marketing (Atlassian’s JIRA, Bitbucket, Dev Tools, and HipChat); Omar Siddiqui, CEO (Sequel); Chris Klotzbach, Product Marketing (Yahoo) Modertator: Jon Cifuentes |
11:05-11:35 AM |
Breakout Session: Breaking down NLP Ilya Gelfenbeyn, CEO (api.ai); John Jackson VP, FTC Strategy (FedEx); Katie McMahon, VP and General Manager, SoundHound; Andrew Poon, Product Manager (Yahoo) Moderator: Navid Hadzaad, CEO (Angel.Ai) |
11:35-12:50 PM |
Lunch & Expo |
12:50-1:25 PM |
Lightning Rounds: Shiny New Bots Speaker names will be revealed day of the event! |
1:25- 2:00 PM |
Lightning Rounds: Brands with Bot Traction Speaker names will be revealed day of the event! |
2:00 PM |
Networking Break |
2:30-3:00 PM |
Breakout Session: Conversational UI Design: Functional vs. Witty Scott Jones, VP, User Experience and Design (Expedia); Anne-Sophie Liduena, VP, Product (Booking.com); Dmitrii Dumik, CEO (Chatfuel); Lauren Kunze, CEO (Pandorabots) Moderator: Robert “The Botfather” Hoffer |
2:30-3:00 PM |
Workshop: Breaking Down The Leading Tools in Artificial Intelligence Tomer Cohen, Head of Content, Search & Discovery Products (LinkedIn); Travis Brooks, Search & Data Science Product Manager (Yelp); Neil Jacobstein, SU’s Artificial Intelligence & Robotics Chair (Singularity University) Moderator: Rich Wong, Partner (Accel Partners) |
3:00 PM |
Break |
3:10-3:40 PM |
Breakout Session: Marketing in an Era of Predictive Technology, AI and Bots Baron Concors, Global Chief Digital Officer (Pizza Hut); Ashley Blackmon, VP, Marketing (Zillow) Moderator: Michael Trapani, Product Marketing Manager (IBM) |
3:10-3:40 PM |
Workshop: Commerce Tools Thomas Wrobel, Head of Performance Marketing (Trivago); Andy Ulery, Founder (Samba); Adam Goldstein, CEO (Hipmunk) Moderator: Stewart Rogers, Director of Marketing Technology (VentureBeat) |
3:40-4:10 PM |
Networking Break |
4:10-4:30 PM |
The New Suggestion-Based Economy Purnima Kochikar, Director, Apps and Games Business Development (Google Play) Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder (VentureBeat) |
4:30-4:50 PM |
Closing Keynote: Ambitious Bots for Business Jason Shellen, Head of Product (Slack) Moderator: Blaise Zerega, Editor-in-Chief (VentureBeat) |
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM |
Village Mob Party |
MobileBeat Day 2 (July 13)
8:30 AM – 5:00 PM |
Registration |
9:35-9:55 AM |
Opening Keynote: The Sexiest Opportunities in AI Rohit Prasad, VP, Alexa Machine Learning and Speech (Amazon) Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder (VentureBeat) |
9:55-10:15 AM |
Perspective: It Should Be About Humans, Not Bots Joe Zadeh, VP Product (Airbnb) Moderator: Blaise Zerega, Editor-in-Chief (VentureBeat) |
10:15-10:45 AM |
Networking Break |
10:45-11:15 AM |
Breakout Session: Achieving the “Commerce” in Conversational Commerce Seth Rosenberg, Product Manager (Facebook Messenger); Stacy Peterson, CIO, (Wingstop); Mark Young, SVP, Business Strategy (Fandango); Robert Stephens, Co-Founder (Assi.st) Moderator: Stewart Rogers, Director, Marketing Technology (VentureBeat) |
10:45-11:15 AM |
Breakout Session: The Rise of the Bot Killer App: Customer Support Richard Smullen, CEO (PypeStream), Mikhail Naumov, President, CSO (DigitalGenius), Jason Smale, Director, Product Strategy (Zendesk) Moderator: Kristina Shen, VP (Bessemer Venture Partners) |
11:15-11:25 AM |
Break |
11:25-11:55 PM |
Breakout Session: What’s the Role of an App in a Bot Driven World Michael Katz, CEO (mparticle); Jason Sinnarajah, VP, Business Development (Weather.com); Adam Medros, SVP, Global Product (TripAdvisor); Mike Ghafferty, CEO (Yelp) Moderator: Blaise Zerega, Editor-in-Chief (VentureBeat) |
11:55-12:55 PM |
Lunch & Expo |
12:55 -1:15 PM |
How AI and APIs Can Transform Your Customer Experience, and Extending Your Platform Too Brendan O’Driscoll, Bot Lead (Spotify) Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder (VentureBeat) |
12:55 -1:15 PM |
Future of apps versus bots as a distribution channel Tony Xu, Founder & CEO (DoorDash) Moderator: Sarah Guo, Investor (Greylock) |
1:15-1:25 PM |
Break |
1:25-1:45 PM |
International Perspective Peeyush Ranjan, CTO (Flipkart) Moderator: Blaise Zerega, Editor-in-Chief (VentureBeat) |
1:45-2:25 PM |
Lightning Round: The Bot Makers Speakers will be announced the day of the event! |
2:25-2:55PM |
Networking Break |
2:55-3:25 PM |
The Future of Commerce Holger Luedorf, SVP, Business Development (Postmates); Nichele Lindstrom, Director, Digital Marketing (Whole Foods Market) Moderator: Terry Angelos, CEO Trialpay (Visa Commerce Network) |
2:55-3:25 PM |
Enterprise Bots: A Different Breed? Andrew Busey, Co-Founder (Conversable); Amir Shevat, Director, Developer Relations (Slack) Moderator: Peter Yared, CEO (Sapho) |
3:25-3:35 PM |
Break |
3:35-4:05 PM |
Making Payments Frictionless Ankur Arya, General Manager, Mobile (Braintree); Michel Yamartino, Head of Commerce (Pinterest) |
4:05-4:35 PM |
Lightning Rounds: New Shiny Bots (Part II) Speakers will be revealed the day of the event! |
4:35-4:55 PM |
Closing Keynote: Entertainment and Personality Bots Redfoo; Rapper, Dancer, Record Producer, & DJ (LMFAO); Esther Crawford, CEO (Olabot) Moderator: Matt Marshall, Founder (VentureBeat) |
4:55-6:00 PM |
Happy Hour & Expo |
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