Apple Business Chat aims to steal chatbots' retail thunder

Apple's iOS 11 update will support Business Chat, a chat capability on Apple iMessage for companies such as retailers to use to communicate more directly with their customers, Apple announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference on Friday. During the live-streamed announcement, the company demonstrated how consumers could use Business Chat either from Apple's Safari browser, Siri virtual assistant or other Apple applications to talk via text message directly with a business that supports the feature. Apple Business Chat will be integrated with customer service systems that businesses commonly use from companies such as Salesforce, Nuance, LivePerson and Genesys, Apple said. Chatbots were one of the hottest emerging technology solutions of 2016, giving businesses such as retailers a largely automated way to connect with their customers on messaging services such as Facebook Messenger. Facebook's support of chatbots has yielded some interesting and useful applications from retailers and others.