Facebook robots want to talk to you

Just accept it: the robots are coming and there’s not much we can do about it.

No one knows this more than Adam Zelcer, who has founded the business Adboy.com.

Zelcer has developed a robot, really a chat bot, that can be built into Facebook and Facebook messenger to answer simple customer queries.

While big businesses have been able to access this technology for some time, he aims to bring it to the masses of small businesses. It costs $1 an hour to run the bot.

Zelcer says the chat bot is able to convert more leads into real sales because it’s easier to use than the standard way people get information about the products and services they buy, which is to browse a business’ website and trawl through pages of product specifications and FAQs to get the answers they require. With a chat bot, you simply ask it questions and it tells you what you need.

The chat bot is programmed with all the usual information contained in a company’s website. “It acts like a personal shopper, giving people recommendations,” he says. Read more

Alexandra Cain - Brisbane Times - 25 April 2018