1. The simplest chatbots are just a convenient command-line interface: in Slack there are usually “slash” commands. Someone will set up a program that wakes up to “/password-reset user:JoeS” and updates ActiveDirectory accordingly. Since this is a very narrow domain, it’s easy to get right, and as it is for the benefit of IT staff, it’s almost always cost-effective to spend some programmer time improving anything that isn’t any good.
2. The next simplest are ordering bots, that control the conversation by
never letting the user deviate from the approved conversational path. If you are ordering a new laptop or a new phone, the bot can ask you questions about memory and disk space until it has everything it needs. Essentially this is just a replacement for a web form with some fields.
3. The hardest are bots that don’t get to control the conversation, and where the user might ask just about anything. Support bots are examples of this: users could ask the helpdesk just about anything, and the support bot needs to respond intelligently.
4
Chatbots that get smarter
by Greg Baker
It’s easy to write a dumb chatbot. It’s much harder to write a smart one that responds sensibly to everything you ask it. There are many different kinds of chatbot, and they are each progressively harder to get right.