Are Bots Really the Next Big Thing?

The rise of artificial intelligence makes for sensational headlines. Over the last few months the hype around'bots' has gone into overdrive following Facebook and Microsoft's forays into the area. And while intelligent software agents are not new, we are clearly entering a new wave of innovation around bots and related software that has the potential to impact our personal lives, our business lives and business operations in general. The current blossoming of machine-learning is driven by both technical and environmental factors, and influenced by business and consumer-oriented perspectives. Businesses struggle with the corporate brain drain caused by the continuous churn of employees, and increasingly turn to technology to capture and share information, to somehow retain and capture the knowledge that powers organizational processes.