Facebook now has a new Application Program Interface (API) that allows developers build bots into Messenger.
The social media giant believes that Messenger can become a primary channel for businesses to interact with their customers, with a mix of artificial intelligence and human intervention.
According to David Marcus, Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook, Bots can provide automated subscription content like weather and traffic updates, customized communications like receipts, shipping notifications, and live automated messages through direct interaction with the people who want to get them.
The Messenger Send/Receive API supports sending and receiving text, images and interactive bubbles containing calls-to-action.
Facebook has also built powerful discovery tools such as plug-ins for websites, usernames and Messenger codes and a search surface in Messenger.
According to Marcus, Facebook News Feed ads will enable the opening of threads on Messenger and a new customer matching feature will allow messages that are usually sent through SMS to be sent on Messenger.
The Wit.ai’s Bot Engine, a new Bot feature that enable developers to build more complex bots that can interpret intent from natural language, and continuously learn to get better over time, was also cited by Facebook.
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