Facebook is pleading mercy, saying that with time, chat-bots will become so effective that they replace the apps on your phone altogether.
The idea is that as we're spending more time in messaging apps – and it is a lot of time, with Whatsapp and Messenger alone handling 60 billion messages a day between them – there is an opportunity to use the same sort of interaction to accomplish tasks.
So, instead of switching out of the Messenger app to laboriously open Uber or Citymapper, or, god forbid, talk to a human, you instruct their bot via text to book you a
taxi or tell you the best way home.
Facebook hopes that people will book flights by chatting with a British Airways bot, that you'll ask a shopping bot for its Spring Summer 16 suggestions, or that you'll get your news by writing to the Sky News bot and asking what's happening.
And, Facebook hopes, this will create a chat-bot economy like the app economy – and the billion dollar businesses that were born on it. Facebook will charge businesses to
make friends with users.
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