Chatbots are still missing one important ingredient

When Facebook Messenger first proclaimed the future of commerce was messaging in April 2016, it provided companies with a viable distribution mechanism (to over 1 billion monthly active users and growing) but excluded an important element in the equation -- a discovery mechanism. Developers and brands who chose Kik as their distribution platform fared a bit better, as Kik's official Bot Shop launch allowed discoverability and curation within multiple categories, modeled after Apple's App Store. By August over 20,000 bots had been created on Kik's Bot Shop. At the time Facebook Messenger announced it was supporting payments in September, over 30,000 bots had been built on Messenger. Although that's a far cry from the 2 million-plus apps in both Apple and and Google's app stores, discoverability remained a hurdle for bot creators.