The state of bots: 11 examples of conversational commerce in 2016

Retailers and technology firms are experimenting with chatbots, powered by a combination of machine learning, natural language processing, and live operators, to provide customer service, sales support, and other commerce-related functions. The company first integrated peer-to-peer payments into Messenger in 2015 and then launched a full chatbot API so businesses can create interactions for customers to occur within the Facebook Messenger app. While the most common uses of the device include playing music, making informational queries, and controlling home devices, Alexa (the device's default addressable name) can also tap into Amazon's full product catalog as well as your order history and intelligently carry out commands to buy stuff. Through Amazon's developer platform for the Echo (called Alexa Skills), developers can develop "skills" for Alexa that enable her to carry out new types of tasks.