Facebook's Chat Bot Patent Is Its Latest E-Commerce Play

A newly published Facebook patent allows users to pay for goods through messaging bots on its app, highlighting the company's continued expansion into commerce. Facebook wants users to order their morning lattes via chat. The company's patent application published last week entitled "Processing Payment Transactions Using Artificial Intelligence Messaging Services," outlines a messaging bot that interprets and responds to users' purchase requests. Instead of opening a merchant's app to search for and buy products, users could visit the company's Facebook page, engage a messaging bot, and place orders within the chat. The patent adds further context to Facebook's support for payments in Messenger, a version of which is currently in closed developer beta.