In 2016, virtually all of the world’s biggest tech companies were announcing competing chatbot projects.
For example, Microsoft had Tay, an AI bot for Twitter. CEO Satya Nadella proclaimed that “bots are the new apps” in March 2016. Amazon made Polly, its text-to-speech service, and Lex, the behavioral engine that Alexa uses to trigger actions, publicly available for chatbot developers to build on.
Messaging services Kik, Line, and Telegram all launched their own bot platforms. Facebook revealed at its F8 conference in April 2016 that it was opening up Messenger as a chatbot development platform and would work with organizations like 1-800-Flowers and CNN News on early trials.
Facebook promised developers the ability to harness all aspects of the Messenger platform, including “Bot Engine,” its new natural language tool that developers could use to train their bots. By mid-2016, 11,000+ Facebook Messenger bots had launched, including trials from Burberry, British Airways, and Starbucks. More than 100,000 chatbots would go on to be built for the Messenger platform over the course of a single year.
At the same time, VC funding to chatbot startups accelerated, with firms investing approximately $85M across 30 deals from 2015 to mid-2016. Slack launched its own $80M chatbot fund, partnering with leading VCs including Spark Capital, Index Ventures, Accel, KPCB, Social Capital, and Andreessen Horowitz.
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