Curiosity Stop: The Social Innovation Roundup

ChatbotConf 2016 Special

CURIOSITY STOP‘Social Thinking’ is understanding how and why people communicate. We use this insight to

provide value for our clients. This understanding is an ongoing passion project for We Are Social.

Our 600+ global team keep a keen eye out for intriguing changes in the social landscape. We take the best of these innovations and compile them in the monthly

Curiosity Stop.

This Curiosity Stop special focusses on the most interesting topics from ChatbotConf 2016.

Luca Della Dora >Marketing & Innovation Director at We Are Social

ChatbotConf is the the first international Conference on Chatbots and Mobile Messaging, which brings together industry

leaders and startups as well as more established companies.

At We Are Social we are very much interested in how chatbots will contribute to the evolution of how people and brands interact from a

business perspective.

It’s interesting to notice how people tend to overestimate the effect of new technology in the short term, and underestimate the effect in the long run. Disruptive innovations are vital to drive global change, so it’s fundamental to balance the excitement of a new tool, and understand

how it will create value in the long term.

To help make sense of the latest developments we have picked the most interesting insights shared by the speakers at ChatbotConf 2016.

This special edition Curiosity Stop includes: 4 highlights from 4 different

speakers plus a final, personal insight from the sharing session.

#1 Reciprocity is the key >

Face to face conversations are all about give and take, and chatbots are built with this in mind to make them a genuine conversational tool. What the chatbot says is an important part of its training, but how it interacts is crucial from a branding perspective.

#1 Reciprocity is the key > Amir Shevat, Director of Developer Relations at Slack

What’s it all about?

Amir Shevat talked about the importance of conversation in his talk “Bot Anatomy”. He highlighted that it’s more important than ever to know the brand’s audience, its language and to give people the opportunity to ask for “human” support at any moment.

The bigger picture

Brands have to strongly invest in building relevant experiences that will make people comfortable interacting with the chatbot. This involves properly copywriting every single response, not spamming, and considering the use of emojis.

#2 Human + Machine >

Artificial intelligence is creating huge opportunities for businesses and is now more than a hot trend after years of research and improvement. The key is not just the technical improvements, but its ability to be integrated with human support.

#2 Human + Machine > Christoph Auer-Welsbach, IBM Watson Partner Innovation

What’s it all about?

By 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human. This doesn’t mean that robots will completely replace humans, but they will help people in accomplishing - in example - recurring tasks, or complex operations, freeing up time for activities where the “human touch” is essential.

The bigger picture

IBM challenged its robot - Watson - to create a movie trailer (Morgan). The result was impressive, but it needed a human touch to ensure the trailer hit the right notes. This example highlights that even if machines are now able to accomplish complex tasks, they need human support to understand compassion, intuition, common sense, and other feelings.

#3 It’s all about context >

The world is becoming increasingly mobile. In 2015 people conducted more searches on phones than on desktops. But the evolution has only just begun. In this mobile world, people increasingly use speech: it’s easier and faster. This behavior will become even more natural thanks to new (non-mobile) technologies (like Amazon Alexa or Google Home) that work purely through voice recognition. This makes it more important than ever for technology to grasp the context of what is being said.

#3 It’s all about context > Behshad Behzadi, Principal Engineer at Google Search

What’s it all about?

Behshad Behzadi talked about the way search has dramatically changed during the last few years, and how personal assistants will improve it even further in the next few years. The future of search is about creating conversational assistants that will help people in their daily lives, so they can focus on things that really matter to them.

The bigger picture

The ultimate assistant should understand three basic things related to the context: the world, you and your world, your current context. The Google personal assistant is now able to interact with humans by analysing three kinds of context: what it knows about us (what we asked before), what it knows we are doing in that moment (what’s on the screen right now), what we are doing in the physical space (where we are, and whom we are interacting with).

#4 Trust is the ultimate challenge >

People are not accustomed to starting conversations with machines yet, so it’s fundamental to ensure consumers are comfortable. Complexity and risk are the key variables that define the way people perceive interactions with chatbots, and they are key to building trustworthy experiences.

#4 Trust is the ultimate challenge > Ido Iungelson, Director of Revenue & Operations at Viber

What’s it all about?

A chatbot has to win four challenges to be useful both from a business perspective and a personal point of view. The first of these is reach which is achievable through virality, social presence, and discovery. Second is branding which can be achieved by aligning the bot’s language and attitude to the brand tone of voice and the way the audience usually interact with the brand on other spaces. The third challenge is monetisation - whether the bot is about publishing or about commerce. The fourth is trust. This will be achieved by giving people the opportunity to opt out of bot discussion if they feel their trust has been compromised.

The bigger picture

The trust matrix assesses how structured or unstructured the experience is, and how high the risk is. For example, Miss Piggy is a risk free chatbot, able to entertain people thanks to a structured architecture. Financial management chatbots are often less structured, but they present a higher risk due to the content being discussed.

#5 Technology is becoming more ‘human’ >

Technology is changing the perception of automated tools, and - more importantly - removing all the factors that make digital experiences fragmented. In a world where people jump from one platform to another repeatedly, it’s crucial to offer a continuous experience by removing barriers. Thanks to new technologies like voice recognition (as source of input) and artificial intelligence (as generator of output), digital solutions are becoming more accessible and arguably, more human.

#5 Technology is becoming more “human” >Luca Della Dora, Marketing & Innovation Director at We Are Social

What’s it all about?

Think about the shift that happened when touchscreens became standard. People were accustomed to using the mouse as the tool to transform ourinputs into given outputs. Touchscreens completely removed this. Whenwe wanted to accomplish a task on the screen, we had just to touch thepart of the screen we wanted to interact with. Voice recognition represents a similar shift in behavior, because it eliminates the friction between the person and the tool, and it makes the interaction more natural than ever.

The bigger picture

Artificial Intelligence (and chatbots as one possible expression of this) is about making people’s experiences more natural. It is reshaping our behavior and giving us the opportunity to spend our time on tasks that matter more in our everyday lives, both from a personal and commercial perspective. Shopbot, eBay's chatbot, is a great example of this.

WE ARE SOCIALWe Are Social is a global agency with offices in five continents

(Antarctica is a little too chilly for our liking).

We deliver world-class creative ideas with forward-thinking brands, and have fun doing it. Our clients include adidas, Google and Netflix.

As an international team of 600+, our passion is people. Our mission is to put social thinking at the centre of marketing.

If you'd like to speak to We Are Social about how to make innovation work for your brand, email us at talktous@wearesocial.net