VentureBeat’s Bots Channel tracks all the important and interesting news related to the exploding field of bots and messaging. And each week we select the top stories and present them in in our free weekly newsletter, BotBeat. We include news stories by VentureBeat staff, guest articles from leading figures in the bots community and a good number of posts from a wide variety of outlets. You can subscribe to our BotBeat newsletter to receive this information in your inbox every Thursday.
Here’s this week’s newsletter:
The story most likely to be seen in your social media stream this week may have been this one about a bot that lets you ghost undesirable dates.
In more impactful news, Slack joined the biggest names in chat platforms and added interactive buttons to its interface, Microsoft acquired Wand Labs, and billion-dollar nonprofit OpenAI shared plans to make its own natural language processor.
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When it comes to bots, no industry is more on fire than travel. On the heels of Expedia’s recent bot launch, this morning we saw Hipmunk launch AI-powered bots on Facebook and Slack. And a lot more is coming from other travel giants scrambling to acquire users in new places outside of Google’s vice-grip on travel search. We’ll hear a lot more about travel at our MobileBeat event July 12-13, where several travel companies will announce new bot-related features.
This week we saw some smart analysis around Apple opening up iMessage and Siri to third party apps. At MobileBeat we’ll talk with Doordash CEO Tony Xu about his Apple strategy, and why he was featured at Apple’s WWDC.
The articles below are just ten of our top picks. We’re seeing so much action now that we can’t fit all our coverage in this newsletter. See more here.
From the VentureBeat Bots channel
The big search upgrade — and how Amazon could beat Google at its own game
Despite the tremendous technological innovation we’ve witnessed over the past two decades (smartphones, cloud computing, social networks), search interfaces and their underlying mechanics have remained fairly stagnant.
OpenAI says it will build a household robot and intelligent agents
Artificial intelligence nonprofit OpenAI, funded by some of the biggest names in Silicon Valley, announced its major goals today, which include the creation of a “general purpose” robot and a natural language processing chatbot.
India is primed for the chatbot revolution
On my way to work in Bangalore last week (I’m an intern at a chatbot company), I was listening to Radio One, an Indian radio station, when I heard an ad for a competition.
The state of bots: 11 examples of conversational commerce in 2016
Two trends — the exploding popularity of mobile messaging apps and advances in artificial intelligence — are coinciding to enable a new generation of tools that enable brands to communicate with customers in powerful new ways at reduced cost.
3 chatbots to help you find your next job
Amid all the hype about chatbots and talk of a tech bubble, more and more companies have started building bots that are meant for business use.
Facebook wants chatbots to learn the way people do
Current deep learning technology is not advanced enough for computers to understand language, a major figure in the field said today.
Dark bots: The cat-and-mouse game begins
The bot era is here, and the world has already begun to see its transformative potential. But like any technology, there will be bad bots as predictably as good ones. Read the full story
This chatbot lets you ‘ghost’ that creepy person you met at a bar
Have you ever had an encounter with someone at a bar or party who insisted on getting your phone number? Do you dread receiving the follow-up text message?
Hipmunk embraces bots with an A.I. travel assistant for Facebook Messenger and Slack
Travel-planning search engine Hipmunk has joined the growing throng of companies to embrace the bot revolution with the launch of an A.I.-powered assistant that provides automated advice to would-be travelers.
Beyond BotBeat
Watch out Facebook Messenger: Apple’s iMessage Just Got Serious
Apple’s WWDC this week confirmed that company is getting serious about messaging.
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