These chatbots failed so yours doesn't have to

In one of the year's most telegraphed tech reveals, Facebook announced in April that it was opening its Messenger APIs so brands could deploy chatbots to create rich, automated customer engagement on the app. But barely 24 hours passed before users discovered that the first chatbots on Messenger could not understand some simple questions, were slow to respond, and did not interact in much of a conversational manner. In other words, they were more chatbust than chatbot. Weather app Poncho took the lion's share of the tribal frustration by giving quippy, off-topic responses to questions it didn't understand. And it clearly was not understanding much. It's easy to slay the risk takers who oftentimes become the first failers, but we shouldn't throw the chatbots out with the bathwater.