Chatbots and live chat APIs to be announced at Facebook F8: Report

After Microsoft , Facebook is betting big on chatbots and is expected to make some related announcement at the F8 next week.

According to a report by Techcrunch , Facebook has built API tools for building chatbots and Live-chat web plug-ins for business clients, and has started providing them to developers. The company is working with chatbots to automate customer service that will replace humans. It should be noted that recently Microsoft also announced Bot Framework so that anyone can build chatbots.

“A presentation sent by Facebook to some Messenger chatbot developers details how beyond just text chatbots will be able to respond with what it calls “Structured Messages.” These include a title, image, a description, a URL and calls to action such as visiting a website, viewing an e-commerce order or making a restaurant reservation,” the report adds. We’ve already seen the social network do something similar by teaming up with KLM.

On the other hand, Live chat isn’t something new either. It’s a button on a website that allows chatting with the user, but Facebook plans to integrate it within the Messenger. According to the report, if users tap on the ‘Message Us’ button on a website, they will be routed to the Messenger app/web service and continue chatting with the business.

While these announcements are expected to be made at F8, the company has announced some official tools such as Messenger Codes, Messenger Usernames and Messenger Links that are designed to make it easier to find people/businesses that matter to you.