chatbot
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SnapTravel raises $8 million for a hotel booking service that works over chat
Chatbots – automated bots that let you interact with a service or brand via messaging apps or SMS – haven’t yet become breakout hits, as a group. But that hasn’t stopped investors from pouring in $8 million into a hotel booking startup called SnapTravel, which lets users find and book rooms via SMS texts and Facebook Messenger. The $8 million Series A round was led… Read More
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Silent Echo lets you chat with Alexa over Slack
Want to chat with Alexa via Slack? A new bot called Silent Echo now makes that possible. The idea is that there are times when you want to interact with Amazon’s virtual assistant, Alexa, but you don’t want to do it by voice. For example, if things are too noisy in the room for Alexa to properly hear you, or, alternately, if you need things to be very quiet. The service… Read More
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DoNotPay launches 1,000 new bots to help you with your legal problems
Since making headlines last year with his DoNotPay chatbot to help people fight their parking tickets, Joshua Browder has been heads-down building in new capabilities on his quest to democratize legal help by automating common legal needs. Today, Browder is pushing out 1,000 new bots that can assist people in filling out transactional legal forms in all 50 U.S. states and the U.K. Read More
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Early chatbot believers Howdy and Bot Metrics join forces to deliver on the promise of bots
Two of the largest communities for chatbot developers are joining forces with the belief that bots are only just getting started. Howdy, a company backed by Bloomberg Beta and Slack among others, announced that it has acquired Bot Metrics, a year-old company funded by Social Capital and Graph Ventures. The deal is undisclosed, and it will see Bot Metrics founders Arun Thampi and Sandeep… Read More
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Astro lets you manage your inbox from Slack, check email hands-free with Alexa
Astro is today rolling out a new bot that merges Slack and email. The bot will allow you to receive your most critical emails within Slack, write and respond to emails using Slack usernames, as well as share important emails – and their attachments – into Slack private messages or channels, among other things. The bot is an expansion on Astro’s previously launched email… Read More
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Cera is building an AI for social care decision support
Can AI overhaul the social care system? That’s the pitch underpinning UK home care provider Cera’s plans. The startup has today taken the tiniest baby steps to launch an AI chatbot that it hopes will, at an unspecified point in future, be able to assist carers with recommendations for home care of people with conditions such as dementia. Read More
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HelloAva launches a chatbot for personalized skin care recommendations
Can a chatbot replace a dermatologist’s recommendation for skin care products? That’s the idea behind HelloAva, a startup launching today at TechCrunch Disrupt NY, which aims to walk people through a series of questions to determine their skin type, then make recommendations as to which products to buy. Read More
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Facebook’s ParlAI is where researchers will push the boundaries of conversational AI
To most of us, communication is a single task. But in reality, it’s not and if you’re a machine trying to replicate dialog, you need to be good at lots of tasks like answering questions, completing sentences and even having small talk. It’s common for research in each of these areas to be done independently, to the detriment of anyone trying to put the pieces together… Read More
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Hugging Face wants to become your artificial BFF
Meet Hugging Face, a new chatbot app for bored teenagers. The New York-based startup is creating a fun and emotional bot. Hugging Face will generate a digital friend so you can text back and forth and trade selfies. Playing with Hugging Face was a lot more engaging than talking with a customer support bot. Like other companies, Hugging Face doesn’t want to be useful. It wants to create a… Read More
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Octane AI boldly bets that Convos are the future of content
One billion people use Facebook Messenger every month. And no matter how bad the current perceptions of the bot scene are, that number is hard to ignore. Octane AI is counting on celebrity content creators to build conversational experiences that people actually want to have. With its public launch and the rollout of its content creation platform Convos, the Octane team is taking a gamble on… Read More
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Domino’s now lets you order from its full menu via Messenger – no setup or account required
Domino’s is about to put its ordering bot, Dom, to a big test. Just ahead of Super Bowl weekend, the pizza chain is rolling out the ability to order off its full menu via Facebook Messenger – even if you haven’t already set up a pre-configured “pizza profile.” The update means it will be easier for more casual Domino’s customers to give the bot a try, as… Read More
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Starbucks unveils a virtual assistant that takes your order via messaging or voice
Starbucks is embracing the trend towards voice-based computing with the launch of a new feature in its mobile app called My Starbucks barista, which allows customers to order and pay for their food and drinks just by speaking. This includes being able to modify their drink order, as if they were speaking with a barista in real life. Additionally, the company is launching a skill for the… Read More
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London startup launches chatbot to help renters exercise their rights
London-based startup RentersUnion has created what it’s hoping will be a socially useful chatbot, pitching their web-based bot as a robot replacement for (expensive) housing lawyers. Read More
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Heek is a chatbot that can build you a website
A startup called Heek wants to make building websites as simple as chatting over text and answering a few questions. Using a conversational interface, the bot asks you questions about yourself, your business and your site, then lets you click to see different designs you can customize to meet your needs. The bot will even prompt you to save your work, as you get further into the site… Read More
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Yahoo Radar is a mobile travel guide with a chatbot-like assistant
Yahoo this morning launched a new travel guide for iOS it’s calling Yahoo Radar. While the app will offer traditional travel companion type features like restaurant recommendations and details on popular attractions, landmarks, and other sights in a given city, the app will be more useful to those who use Yahoo Mail as their primary email client. It also heavily relies on a… Read More
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ToyTalk renames to PullString, repositions as authoring tool for bots
ToyTalk, the startup that mashed together Barbie and the Internet of Things and let your kids chat away with Thomas the Tank Engine for hours on end, is cashing out on the bot craze with a slight realignment of philosophy — and a new name. The company developed a whole toolset — called PullString — to enable writers to create narratives for children’s toys. Read More
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IRC Has Lost 60% Of Its Users Since 2003, But Life As A Robot Is Just Beginning
Internet Relay Chat (IRC) has lost 60 percent of its users, going from 1 million in 2003 to about 400,000 today. And IRC channels? In 2003 there were 500,000; now there is half that number. This is due in large part to the advent of the Web, social media, and tools that can do a lot more than plain text can do. Read More
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