One of the most compelling use cases for AI at the moment is developing chatbots and conversational agents. While the AI part of the equation works reasonably well, getting the training data organized to build and train accurate chatbots has emerged as the bottleneck for wider adoption. That's what drove the folks at Dashbot to develop a data platform specifically for chatbot creation and optimization. Recent advances in natural language processing (NLP) and transfer learning have helped to lower the technical bar to building chatbots and conversational agents. Instead of creating a whole NLP system from scratch, users can borrow a pre-trained deep learning model and customize just a few layers.

This post is co-written by Arte Merritt, co-founder and CEO of Dashbot. In their own words, "Dashbot is an analytics platform for chatbots and voice skills that enables enterprises to increase engagement, satisfaction, and conversions through actionable insights and tools." After you have deployed a bot, it is critical to analyze bot interactions, learn from this analysis, and use these learnings to improve the end-user experience. Conversational interfaces are easier to analyze than websites and mobile applications. You can infer user behavior directly from conversations instead of guessing what your users want by stitching together page views and choosing events.

This month we're chatting with Arte Merritt, CEO and Cofounder of Dashbot, a bot analytics platform that enables publishers and developers to increase engagement, acquisition, and monetization. In conversation with Arte, we get the low-down on the future of conversational analytics, how voice-controlled bots like Alexa and Google Home are changing the game, and the surprising stats around people sending scandalous selfies to bots (yes, really). Check out the full conversation below. Give us a quick primer on Dashbot. Dashbot is a bot analytics platform with additional tools to take action on the data.

After processing over 7 billion messages at Dashbot, we took a deeper look into the languages with which users communicate. As we've mentioned before, it's important to look at the messages users are sending to your chatbots. The beauty of conversational interfaces is that users say exactly what they want from the bot -- and what they think of it afterwards. Examining the messages and taking action on them can help improve the engagement of your chatbot. In the past, we looked at top messages across all Facebook bots. However, chatbots are developed and used by people all over the world.

Now in its early stages, artificial intelligence is on the cusp of going mainstream. There are some cool AI-based gadgets and apps on the market, but the next step in AI's evolution is the development of gadgets that are useful in day-to-day life. This doesn't necessarily mean "smart" -- just practical. While AI will no doubt continue to improve as technology progresses, there are a handful of helpful devices and gadgets you can get your hands on now. Here is a quick look at six of the best.

Having processed nearly three billion messages at Dashbot, we've taken an updated look at the most popular, and sometimes not so popular, messages users send to Facebook bots. Hi and Hello are still the most popular messages. Each month, more than 60 percent of bots receive the message "hi" -- in April it was 60.2 percent, March 61.5 percent, February 67.4 percent, and January 65.3 percent. Despite "hi" being a common message, not all bots support it still. We had a meet-up recently where we entered "hi" into one of the demo bots, and the response was "Sorry, not sure what you mean."

Dashbot, the leading bot analytics platform, today announced it has raised $2 million in a Series Seed funding round. 'We strongly believe that AI-driven insights and tools-coupled with engaging conversational interfaces-can significantly bolster organizations' bottom lines in an efficient way. Dashbot is doing just that, and is essential for any enterprise or developer to build and monetize their bots in a technology environment increasingly harnessing AI's potential' Tweet this Dashbot provides bot-specific analytics and tools to enable brands and developers to increase user acquisition, engagement, and monetization. In addition to bot-specific metrics like sentiment analysis, conversational analytics, and AI response effectiveness, Dashbot provides tools to take action on that data, like its Live Person Takeover of chat sessions and Push Notifications for re-engagement. Dashbot is a cross platform solution which natively supports Facebook Messenger, Slack, and Kik bots, and has a generic API for any conversational interface.

We're 30 years removed from the final episodes of the original Knight Rider, the hit series in which David Hasselhoff was aided in his crime fighting by automotive artificial intelligence assistant, KITT. But that doesn't mean that we're not still clinging on for the perfect in-car AI system -- and thanks to new Kickstarter Dashbot, we may not be waiting too much longer. Heck, it even has the quasi-retro interface working in its favor! Dashbot is a smart AI assistant, designed to be 100 percent voice-controlled so drivers keep their hands on the wheel and, just as importantly, their eyes on the road. Connecting to your smartphone via Bluetooth, it promises to be the on-the-road smart assistant we have been hankering after.

Now that we've welcomed Amazon Echo's Alexa and Google's Assistant into our homes, the next frontier for AI-powered personal assistants is the car. Next Thing Co. (NTC) has launched the world's first AI-powered hands-free car kit, the Dashbot. This $49 (£39) device can play music, get directions and send messages in a car, and it's all voice-powered. Demand for the device is taking off fast. NTC launched a Kickstarter campaign to fund the Dashbot, which has raised $61,000 of its $100,000 goal in little over 24 hours.

Keeping users around is not. Since Facebook Messenger bots launched at F8 in April 2016, over 30,000 bots have been created. Major brands like ESPN, Star Wars, and Yelp have released apps on Apple's iMessage. Microsoft, Google, and Amazon have all heavily invested in platforms for bots and conversational and voice experiences. Pandorabots, one of the oldest chatbot platforms, boasts over 285,000 bots made by over 225,000 developers.