The Weather channel launched Watson-powered bot for Facebook Messenger

The Weather channel has announced its newest offering – a weather bot for Facebook Messenger. It offers five-days forecasts, daily forecasts and severe weather alerts, and is also capable of creating custom weather alerts. Powered by IBM Watson, it’s a cognitive weather bot that lets users view and share personalised weather-related news content, current conditions, forecasts, severe weather notifications, and other relevant weather information. For those not in the know, The Weather Company is the world’s largest private weather enterprise that delivers up to 26 billion forecasts daily.  Over the time, the bot will learn a user’s preferences to deliver weather-related content specific to his or her interests by leveraging IBM Watson Natural Language Classifier and Alchemy Language APIs. It uses natural language and machine learning capabilities of IBM Watson as the user engages with the bot. It will then start making recommendations, predict, and have conversations for a more personalised experience. “At The Weather Company, we want to create the best user experiences, and that means providing weather information and content in any format people want to receive it,” said Cameron Clayton, general manager, The Weather Company, an IBM Business. “One billion people use Messenger every month, and most want to know how the weather will impact their day. The Weather Channel bot for Messenger will create a highly personalised experience for each one of those individuals.” Some of the highlights of the bot include hourly forecasts, daily forecast and 5-day outlook, severe weather alerts, but these are currently available only in the US, Canada and Western Europe. You will also get access to breaking weather news and content recommendations. Facebook and Messenger users can access the bot through The Weather Channel Facebook fan page, as well as the Messenger app. It is available in 39 languages.