What Are Chatbots? And Why Does Big Tech Love Them So Much?

Facebook chief and co-founder Mark Zuckerberg at the social network's annual developers gathering unveils the option of building chatbots that let software have one-on-one natural language exchanges with people in San Francisco on April 12, 2016. They're all the rage: Kik has them, Facebook wants them, and it seems like every computer coder wants to make them. And why is every company suddenly hot on this new A.I. trend?