Have you ever just been having a chat
with your friend on Facebook messenger and decide "Oh, I think I am in the
mood to buy something online....immediately." Well
friends, what a time to be alive...now you can!
That is right, FACEBOOK has just
recently announced that people will be able to go shopping directly from
messenger. How, you ask? Well..let me enlighten you.
According to THIS article the messenger chat
service will soon come equipped with artificial intelligence called
"shopbots". As of now, only a few companies are signed onto the
service but the article states that if more companies start to hop onto the
personal shopping band wagon, all of us could soon be chatting with these
"shopbots". The shopbots work much like a conversation. The bot opens
up with asking you what kind of items you are looking for, men's or women's.
Then, each time you speak to the bot the search becomes increasingly
specific until you ideally find what you are looking for.
Seems pretty interesting, right?
After doing further research into
these personal shoppers I found an article by Lukas Thoms who has tried
out these shopbots. Long story short, his experience with these bots was not up
to par. ( I recommend reading the article, it is pretty funny) It is pretty
clear that Facebook has some work to do if this is the path they want to
pursue.
BUT!