MindMeld aims to make those frustrating commerce chatbots smarter

For all the buzz over conversational bots these days, they're still pretty crude, as some users of Facebook Messenger's new chatbots recently discovered. It's not necessarily that they're dumb, but they do need to be trained to respond intelligently in the specific situations in which they're employed. Today MindMeld Inc., one of the pioneers behind conversational artificial intelligence technology, will roll out a version of its bot platform specifically for retailers and e-commerce companies. MindMeld for Commerce is intended to help customers find products, do messaging-based transactions, check on order status and get support without requiring another human to get involved. Tuttle contends that MindMeld's bots can converse, either in text or by voice, better not only than other bots but also virtual assistants such as Apple's Siri, Amazon's Alexa and Microsoft's Cortana.