The growth of bots is certainly in its early stage, but we can surely foresee a very bright future for it. Bots started off merely as chat bots but with the development of technological environment, they were infused with more and more features like menus, buttons and visual interfaces. Today’s bots have a variety of affluent features. So what exactly is an internet bot? Let’s try to find out.

What is a bot?

A bot is an application which performs tasks automatically without a one-to-one human interaction. It takes your message as a command or search query and performs the task or provides you the best results. The tasks could be anything from setting up an alarm, setting a meeting reminder, looking for flights, checking weather forecast etc. The best and the most popular example of a bot would be ‘Siri’ – The kind friend from Apple. Bots are everywhere on the internet ranging from malicious bots which contain viruses, to search engine spiders that crawl the internet and add web pages.

With technological advancements, developers created more and more enjoyable experiences for users and businesses. This emphasized on the fact that internet bots are much more than just chats. Text is not the only form of interaction with a bot. Users interact with a bot through UI, menus, and buttons as well. Voice commands are also growing as a popular medium to interact with bots. Moreover, text is not the best way to respond in all the cases.

Let’s say I’m looking for flight options from California to Athens. It would be great if I get a visual representation of the information rather than a text or maybe I’m driving and I’m looking for the nearest gas filling station. The best form of information would be an audio message. The bottom line is that a bot should not be restricted to be just a chatbot. It must be a mixture of all the possible ways of interaction to provide a complete user experience. Bots can even be human-powered. An interactive messenger chat with a customer service executive rather than an SMS is a much better user experience and has revolutionized the customer service industry.

What Can Bots Do?

Well, they can do a hell lot of stuff and that too in a jiffy. They can perform searches across the web to get you the best travel options (which can take hours for you). They can constantly check for price drops on your favorite desirable items and notify you whenever that happens. It lets you order food, get directions, look for places nearby, transfer money, set alerts, set reminders, manage finances and a lot more.

The Future of Bots

It’s bright and shiny. Bots act as a communication framework that allows us to get anything we want. This simply means lesser apps on our phone. Bots will dominate in the coming years and may very well kill a big chunk of mobile applications. Technology wizards have predicted that Internet bots store would soon be the biggest thing since app stores. They would also become the largest incoming after facebook messenger. Who knows one day we all will forget about the traditional websites and bots will become new websites for us.

Run with the time and be updated with the latest technology trends. Talk to our experts and understand how you can integrate the latest technology with your business to scale new heights.

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