Should payments hop on the bot bandwagon? PYMNTS.com

The media has declared chatbots the digital version of the little black dress: a technology staple that every brand must now have and every payment type must now commerce-enable. Technology enthusiasts draw pictures on whiteboards showing bots as the new king of the stack, out-stacking the last great stack -- apps, which sit on top of the next-to-last great stack -- mobile operating systems, which sit on top of the next-to-next-to-last great stack -- the web. VCs tout bots as commerce's next big frontier, one that can make the notion of contextual, conversational commerce real inside of the app where consumers now spend 75 percent of their time: messaging. The big bet is that bots will make it possible for brands to indulge the every digital whim of this group of consumers without them ever having to leave their digital home away from home. Facebook Messenger's announcement last week that 30,000 bots would soon be payment-enabled for the 900 million people who hang inside of its messaging ecosystem only stoked that fire.