The chatbots are coming -- and they want to help you buy stuff

The battle for your online shopping dollars has largely been waged on websites and, more recently, smartphone apps. Now, retailers are looking to another digital tool to win your money and your loyalty: An army of chatbots. Chatbots -- the name for robots that simulate human conversation -- have been thrust into the spotlight in recent weeks amid a flurry of new experiments in how they might be used to shape the future of shopping. Retail heavyweights Sephora and H&M recently launched bots on messaging app Kik that help shoppers browse and buy their products. Taco Bell showed off its TacoBot, a way to use the messaging app Slack to place a meal order. And on Tuesday, Facebook announced it has created a platform that allows companies to develop bots that run within its Messenger app, which has some 900 million users worldwide.