Chatbot Comparison - Facebook, Microsoft, Amazon, and Google -

Siri and Alexa have now become household names in America, Xiaoice has been an digital friend to million in China since 2014, and the term "chatbot" has been a buzzword for nearly two years. With all the hype about chatbots for consumers, we set out to discover the potential business implications of conversational interfaces or "chatbots". By analyzing the chatbot plans at the "big 4" technology firms (Microsoft, Google, Facebook, Amazon), we set out to answer the following questions for our business readers: We begin with some context on the development of chatbots and why they've become popular, followed by a chatbot overview of the initiatives of Facebook, Microsoft, Google, and Amazon, respectively. In the conclusion, we'll tie together the trends and patterns we picked up across all four tech giants, and shed some light on what their progress and vision might mean for other businesses. Readers with a particular interest in different "in use" chatbot applications might want to read our recent article titled "7 chatbot use cases that actually work."