London startup launches chatbot to help renters exercise their rights

London-based startup RentersUnion has created what it's hoping will be a socially useful chatbot, pitching their web-based bot as a robot replacement for (expensive) housing lawyers. The intended user is anyone not on the London property ladder, and thus at the mercy of landlords, tenancy agreements and (apparently ever-inflating) rents. Not that the chatbot can do much about the latter problem, sadly. But it does offer a little automated help with parsing wordy tenancy agreements to, for example, extract salient details such as fees in an effort to empower a downtrodden section of society. Visitors to the bot are offered a selection of topics it can help with -- from issues with their energy bills to problems with repairs or questions around fees.