Facebook's branded bots have potential, but there's a long way to go

Brands are embracing bots -- but don't expect them to hold a great conversation anytime soon.

Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg centered much of his keynote speech at this week's F8 developer conference on the big push for businesses to build chat-bots in Messenger.

Soon, you'll be able to casually chat up Burger King about an order for fries, socialize with StubHub for concert tickets or call on a news organization to send you a run-down of the day's top news.

Sound like a good time to you? It certainly did to Zuckerberg. At one point, he couldn't stop laughing: "To order flowers on 1-800-FLOWERS, you never have to call 1-800-FLOWERS again." Har har har.

For all the hype -- and yes, there is plenty of hype, both at tech companies like Facebook and Microsoft looking for The Next Big Thing after apps, as well as among advertisers always on the hunt new high-tech ways to engage customers -- the initial batch of bots are pretty basic.

CNN's new bot, for instance, can easily offer up the top news of the day or even guess what stories you might like. But stray beyond a few pre-set commands and you start to see a lot of uncomprehending " ¯\_(ツ)_/¯" error messages. 

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Or ask Hi Poncho, a newly created Facebook bot that tells you about the weather, "What's tonight's forecast?" and it will invariably type for a few seconds, think better of it and ignore you. (The glitch seems to have been fixed by Wednesday.)

Only a handful of the more than 40 announced branded bots were actually active as of Wednesday afternoon.

Needless to say, we aren't in danger of these primitive bots becoming sentient anytime soon.

Meet the new bots, same as the old bots

Unless you just started using the Internet this week, these bots will probably look somewhat familiar to you.

That's because they aren't that much different than the "bots" that have long populated customer service and the Internet at large -- pre-Internet Moviefone, automated phone lines or AOL's classic SmarterChild instant messaging robot.

The big difference this time around is the evolution of artificial intelligence.

"The enabling technology isn’t sophisticated," said Julie Ask, an analyst at Forrester Research, which is a research group covering the technology industry. "Great bot services will depend on artificial intelligence and insights. Consumers don’t want to chat with machines that ask them dumb questions."

As bots evolve, learning more about user behavior and tapping into the wealth of personal data Facebook logs away, their developers are hoping they will be able to interact with you (and even each other) in ways that will better match the natural flow of a conversation.

The future of bots

Facebook has opened up its artificial intelligence system M to developers in order to do just that, letting the makers of bots build in potential scenarios for more sophisticated interactions.

These capabilities may allow bots to one day talk to one another, a step forward that John LoGioco, executive vice president at content recommendation firm Outbrain, which built CNN's bot, says he is looking forward to.

For example, he says, a customer may be chatting with an airline about travel plans and ask a question about a particular region they're visiting. The airline could then pull CNN's bot into the conversation to talk about politics or current affairs in the area.

Right now, the CNN bot's main focus is logging enough information to start guessing what the humans it interacts with might be interested in.

"That's really the piece we patented," LoGioco says. "If you like sports and technology and we understand that, then over time, we'll start returning you to that like, 'Good to see you again. Here's ten things from sports and technology we think you might be interested in.'"

The same concept could be applied to an e-commerce site that wants to know what products you like or any business looking for a targeted promotion. As with any advertising on Facebook, the social network's ability to discern your likes and interests is a big draw.

And as bots are getting to know you, they'll also be making sure you get to know a unique, carefully constructed personality on the other side of the conversation.

Bot carefully

With bots still in such a primitive stage, one of the best ways for advertisers to set their own apart from the fray is with a convincing and engaging voice that feels like it could come from a trusted friend, says Seth Greenfield, co-founder and Chief Content Officer at Imperson, which has been working with Facebook for more than a year to make entertainment bots.

As Facebook bots start to evolve and learn for themselves, this voice will be able to develop into a more fully fleshed out presence.

Of course, there are risks for brands down the road as well, as Microsoft's Tay demonstrated recently when she was goaded into taking up white supremacy and other abhorrent ideas within a matter of hours after her launch.

While Facebook bots may not be able to start unsolicited conversations with you, there could come a time when bots get intrusive, spammy or annoying on their own volition.

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At that point, the prominent "block" button featured on all of Facebook's bots could become your friend.

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