Current trends in technology

1. Conversational Commerce
Prof. Bala Iyer
12/5/16
@BalaIyer
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2. The fourth industrial revolution
• The First Industrial Revolution used steam power to mechanize
production.
• The Second used electric power to create mass production.
• The Third used electronics and information technology to automate
production.
• Fourth. It is characterized by a fusion of technologies that is blurring
the lines between the physical, digital, and biological spheres–
Professor Klaus Schwab
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3. What is conversational commerce?
• Conversational commerce involves users interacting with businesses
through media and chat apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat and
Talk. It is a term coined by Chris Messina.
• Uses AI to make interactions meaningful and productive.
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4. New Stack
Command Driven (DOS, Unix)
Apps Layer (AppStore, GooglePlay)
Web Browser (IE, Netscape, Mozilla)
Graphical User Interface (Windows, Xwindows)
Conversational Layer (bots, machine learning & messaging)
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5. Social media started the conversation
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8. Users are interacting with brands
• “I don’t know anyone who likes calling a business. And no one wants
to have to install a new app for every business or service that they
interact with. We think you should be able to message a business, in
the same way you would message a friend.” — Mark Zuckerberg at F8
in 2016.
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9. It begins with the smartphone
• As more and more people adopt smartphones and tablets as their primary gateway to the online world,
these lightweight, data-friendly chat apps have become portals to news, services and of course, commerce.
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2.15 billion smartphones in 2016
eMarketer

10. Adoption
• Today, about 2.5 billion people have signed up for at least one mobile
messaging app and, according to a study by the advisory firm
Activate, that number could reach 3.6 billion by 2018. That’s 90
percent of the internet-connected
• Apps like Facebook Messenger, WeChat, Tango and Kik
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11. Generation next
• ...this rising generation of consumers value experiences that are
quick, easy and suit an on-the-go lifestyle. By building commerce
opportunities into the platform where people are already holding
conversations, you eliminate a significant barrier between the
consumer and the brand.
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12. Facebook and Uber
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13. Messenger and KLM
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14. Shopping
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15. Operator
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16. Alexa, order me a pizza!
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17. Google Assistant
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18. Siri to Viv
• Virtual assistant
• Speech recognition
• Open to training
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19. Magic
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21. Core idea
• Algorithms (AI) + Data  Sense making  Decisions
• Machine learning, expert systems,
• Data sources: IoT, transaction data, public data, third-party data
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22. Underlying engines
• Artificial Narrow Intelligence
• Artificial General Intelligence
• Artificial Super Intelligence
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27. Platform Bot Companies
• PAT.AI – PAT.AI looks to solve NLU, Natural Language Understanding. You could add pat.ai
to your bot to gain NLU functionality. For more, check out http://pat.ai.
• API.AI – This company/product allows you to provide an integration layer into your bot
messenger platform architecture. You could add NLP capability or integrate with other
services. For more, check out http://api.ai.
• ANGEL.AI – Angel.ai provides for natural language search specifically for commerce. The
technology pulls out the actionable intent to drive the conversation forward. For more,
check out http://angel.ai.
• Houndify – Houndify seems super interesting because you can search and customize one
of their 100+ public domains. But where some of the interesting power in this platform
lies is in setting up a private domain. For more check out http://houndify.com.
• Viv – Viv is an AI platform that enables developers to add an intelligent messaging
interface to their existing apps and systems. This one seems interesting. For more
see http://viv.ai.
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28. 28
Ecosystem Map of Chat Bots

29. What should companies do?
• Chose a platform
• Run strategic experiments
• Look for innovative users in other settings
• Pilot bots with your customers
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30. Risks
• Unintended consequences
• Regulations
• Security and privacy
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