Bots are increasingly being used for customer service interactions, with a prediction that people will have more conversations with bots than their spouse by 2020. While bots offer advantages over websites and apps in being interactive and providing speed and consistency, early implementations often failed due to unrealistic expectations, using bots for the wrong purposes, or underestimating challenges of users new to bot interactions. Different types of bots serve informational, transactional, or conversational purposes. Consultants can help organizations identify suitable use cases for bots and implement them effectively through activities like defining strategies, selecting platforms, and designing conversations. While the potential of bots is significant, the field is still early in development with many learning experiences yet to come.

1. (Chat)Bots
Excitement and
disillusion
September 11th 2020
© AskBrian GmbH 2020. Alle Rechte vorbehalten.
Training for students
‘By 2020, the average person will
have more conversations with bots
than with their spouse.’ (Gartner)
1

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A
g
e
n
d
a
2.
Top 10
fails
1.
Excitement
4.
Bot
types
5.
Use
cases
3.
Basic
‘concepts’
6.
Consultant’s
role
Intro

3. INTRO WHAT WE WILL TALK ABOUT
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Bot
Virtual assistant
Smart assistant
Chatbot
‘A computer program designed to
simulate conversation with human users,
especially over the internet.’
‘Chatbots often treat conversations like they're a game
of tennis: talk, reply, talk, reply.’
(Oxford Dictionary)
Smart bot
Talkbot
Interactive agent
Artificial
Conversation
Entity
RPA
NLP
NLG
ML
ELIZA
1966
Virtual agent
Digital agent

4. INTRO THE BOT ECOSYSTEM
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KNOWLEDGE
PLATFORMS
ANALYTICS
MESSAGING PLATFORMS
BOT APPLICATION
BOT BUILDER
AI TOOLS

5. 1.
Excitement SOME NUMBERS
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80% of customer
interactions can be
resolved by well-designed
bots (Accenture)
$65B of potential
salary savings bots could
create (BI intelligence
based on McKinsey data)
60% of consumers
want easier access to self-
serve solutions for
customer service (Ovum)
50% of enterprises
will spend more on bots
than traditional mobile app
development by 2021
(Gartner)

6. BOT COMPETITORS
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1.
Excitement
ADVANTAGES OF BOTS COMPARED TO…
Websites:
 Interactive
 Straight to point
 Fun
 User insights
Apps:
 No download
 No registration
 High conversions
 Chat hype
Humans:
 Cost
 Speed
 Consistency
 Availability

7. 2.
Top 10 fails LEARNINGS
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1.
Underestima-
ting the potential
2.
Unrealistic
expectations
Bot
4.
Bot isn’t bot
3.
Wrong use
case
5.
Wrong
platform
6.
Wrong channel
7.
Underestimating
% of ‘bot-virgins’
8.
‘Let the IT do it’
9.
‘Let the swarm
do it’
10.
Building the
perfect bot

8. 3.
Basic
‘concepts’
BASIC STRUCTURE
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Agent
INTEGRATIONS FULFILLMENT
THE BOT CORE
Providing
interaction channel
 Webpage
 FB Messenger
 Skype(4business)
 Email…
 1+1
 Indicator lookup
 API-calls
 Connecting any app…
Performing the
‘business logic’
Understanding
the user
EXAMPLES
TASK

9. 3.
Basic
‘concepts’
BRIAN‘S ARCHITECTURE
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10. 3.
Basic
‘concepts’
AGENT BUILDING BLOCKS
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Utterances  What the user types or says  ‘I need the overhead ratio for biotech’
 ‘Now for pharma companies’
Intents  What the user wants  Get indicator for industry
Entities  Items referred to in utterances and intents  Industry: Pharma
Contexts  Data captured in prior intents  Indicator: Overhead ratio
‘CONCEPT’ EXAMPLES
SIMPLIFIED DEFINITION
Brian insight

11. 4.
Bot types MORPHOLOGY
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GOOD BOTS
BAD BOTS
Crawlers
Impersonators
Informational bots
Scrapers
Entertainment bots
Spammers
Chatbots
Hackers
Transactional bots
‚INTELLIGENT‘ BOTS
‚STUPID‘ BOTS
CHATTING
TALKING
‚TELLING STUFF‘
‚DOING STUFF‘
BROAD BOTS
NARROW BOTS
Intelligent agents
• Google Assistant
Script bots
• BotFather
(telegram)
Smart bots
• Yodatai
Voice bots
• Alexa
Text bots
• Amy
Voice and text bots
• Cortana
Phone bots
• M&S bot
Q&A bots
• Yodatai
Chatty bots
• Mitsuku / Meena
E-commerce bots
• Lego bot
Me bots
• Katy Perry
Search bots
• WSJ bot
Work bots
• Amy
Virtual assistants
• Siri
Device bots
• Bosch MyBoiler
Generalists
• Google Assistant
Specialists
• DoNotPay
Multi-talents
• Neo

12. 4.
Bot types THE „CHATTY“ BOT RACE
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13. 4.
Bot types EXKURS: BOTS VS. RPA
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WHAT THEY BOTH HAVE IN COMMON Automation, imitating humans
CONNECTED SYSTEMS ‘THINK‘… … they interact with systems … they interact with humans
Humans Systems
‘PRETENDING’ TO BE HUMAN VIS-A-VIS
THEY ARE TYPICALLY… … rather ‘smart’ … rather ‘stupid’
DESIGNED TO… …interact … work
IN SPORTS, THEY WOULD BE … … master in tennis … master in 400m relay
CHAT(-BOTS) RPA(-BOTS)
IPA(BOTS)

14. 5.
Use cases WHERE BOTS COME INTO PLAY
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CONNECTING BUSINESSES
TO THEIR CUSTOMERS
CONTROLLING IOT
DEVICES
IMPROVING INTERNAL
PROCESSES
 Customer service
 E-Commerce
 Marketing
 Home entertainment
 Auto
 Organizational knowledge
 Surfacing data & insights
 Support functions: HR, Finance, Legal,…
Bookings or reservations
Forwarding to appropriate human
Quick (emergency) answers
Mailing list or service subscription
Buy basic items
Complaint resolution
Getting detailed answers
Paying a bill
24%
Getting inspiration
Expensive purchases
App consolidation
46%
40%
33%
19%
26%
24%
20%
16%
5%
4%

15. 5.
Use cases TECHNICAL USE CASE TYPOLOGY
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TYPE EXEMPLARY QUESTION
Simple Q&A bot What is RPA?
Random answer from list Tell me an interesting fact about bots
Conditional advice Do I need an SLA for internal service delivery?
Operations ‘How much is 1+1?’
Online service access What is the current exchange rate EUR to USD?
Look-up in a ‚detached‘ db What is the average ROCE in Online retail?
CRUD1) in real time db Change my password
Provide file Send me the WACC calculation model
Change file Translate my powerpoint presentation
1) Create, read, update and delete
PROVIDING ANSWERS
CONDUCTING
DATABASE OPERATIONS
PROVIDING AND
ALTERING FILES

16. 6.
Consultant’s
role
WHAT ARE THE OPPORTUNITIES?
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 Defining bot strategy / cornerstones
 Organizational set-up (CoE)
 Bringing in ‘domain’ know-how
 Use cases (discussions, workshops)
 Process & content management
 Platform selection
 Conversation design
 Conducting trainings
 Complex implementation
THE VIEW OF TECH-GUYS: WHAT A CONSULTANT CAN HELP WITH:
Bot
know-how
depth
Today?
Goal?

17. WRAP UP WHERE WE STAND…
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 Hundred thousands of various bots in place
 We are still at the very beginning
 Cloud + platforms allow you to start immediately
 Broad range of bots will come to help
 We / humans will do many mistakes (lousy bots)

18. Wrap Up WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW NOW
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 You understand the excitement and disillusion about bots
 You saw, bots are extremely versatile
 You understand the basic bot architecture and ‘concepts’ such as intents and context
 You understand the difference between bots and RPAs
 You have some ideas, how to discuss bot use cases with your clients
 You realized, the best bot to start with is a custom Q&A bot