Chatbots are among one of the most visible applications that the AI technology has enabled in the last decade. They have truly evolved over the years and turned into indispensable tools for online businesses, consumers, and various industries. They are everywhere – from online assistants to helper bots to home applications like Alexa. They have, in a short span, become one of the most used consumer-facing applications of artificial intelligence and machine learning.
In a world that is increasingly dependent on data, the ubiquity of chatbots can be attributed to the fact that it is an important application, which directly interacts with consumers. Chatbot developers are helping businesses create a better user experience, and are driving significant value for a diverse range of industries.
A chatbot development company has its work cut out for it – constructing a machine that can mimic human intelligence and interact with real humans in a reliable and pre-programmed manner. Bot development companies opine that these chatbots are still in a state of technical infancy and the rapid development in this sector is helping the technology to begin on the path of meeting its full potential. As the chatbot industry develops and plays an important role in how consumers and enterprises interact, it is bound to generate significant future value in both corporate and consumer settings.
Chatbots have completely transformed the customer service industry, and experts predict that by 2022, more than 90% of customer interactions will be automated. Chatbotdevelopers are working on making these chatbots more intuitive, swift, and accurate.
They are employing time-tested methods and amalgamating them with latest advancements in technology to come out with great products. The framework chosen by a developer also plays a role in determining the efficacy and usability of a chatbot.
A number of frameworks are employed by chatbot development companies, depending on various suitable factors. Some popular frameworks for chatbot development include:
- Wit.ai
Wit.ai is an open-source chatbot framework that possesses advanced natural language processing API. It is owned by Facebook and is one of the most popular choices for building apps and devices that users can talk to. Wit.ai can be used to build text or voice-based intelligent bots for social channels, mobile apps, websites, and IoT devices that people can interact with.
Wit.ai is mostly used for:
- Bots
- Home Automation
- Wearable Devices
- Mobile Apps
- IBM Watson
IBM Watson is a Natural Language Classifier that allows a developer to build, train, and deploy conversational interactions into any application. It can interpret natural language using the customer classifier. IBM Watson supports various machine learning techniques and can be programmed to search for an answer from a knowledge base.
It
can even help the bot decide between asking the user for more clarity or
directing the user to a human. It supports multiple languages, including
English, Spanish, Arabic, and more. It can be deployed in any cloud-based app
or on-premises environment. It makes smarter AI available, wherever required.
- DialogFlow
DialogFlow
is a Google-based chatbot building framework, which is based on Natural
Learning Processing. It has built-in machine learning capabilities and integrates
well with popular communication channels. Chatbot developers prefer
Dialogflow for its ability to include natural language voice interfaces in the
products. This particular framework is mostly used for building conversational
apps for customers – not only in various languages but on multiple platforms as
well.
Available since 2008, Pandorabots is an open-source chatbot framework that allows developers to build and publish AI-powered chatbots. These bots can be for applications based on web, mobile, or even messaging apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. Pandorabots is majorly being used in academics and research fields as virtual assistants, e-learning, teaching assistants, and more. Pandorabots supports multiple languages, is flexible, and can be extended to support the bot functions.
- BotPress
BotPress is another open-source conversational framework that is used in multiple Artificial Intelligence applications. It is not only a flexible and conversational platform that is used by enterprises to automate conversations, but is also robust enough to be applied in applications to manage workflow in global companies. Its most prominent features include:
- Advanced permission requirement
- Secure
- Data compliant
- Release management
- Built for application in analysis and reporting
- Easily available and widespread usage
BotPress
is a lightweight and fast framework that developers can work on with extreme
ease. It can be deployed by them within an existing infrastructure as well,
which explains its widespread usage.
Microsoft-owned
Microsoft Bot Framework is fortified with powerful tools, SDKs, and services that
offer rich foundations to developers to build and connect intelligent bots
upon. It is used as a comprehensive framework on which enterprise-grade
conversational Artificial Intelligence experiences are built. The framework
offers language understanding, question and answer maker, and an array of
replies composed in a sophisticated manner. The enterprise-grade bots built
using Microsoft Bot Framework are intelligent and give greater control over the
ownership of data.
The Rasa Stack is a set of open source NLP tools that are mainly used for building chatbots by developers. It is employed for building complex chatbots in a cost-effective and time-efficient manner. It can be regarded as the infrastructure layer that is used by developers to not just build, but also improve and deploy AI assistants that are significantly better. Since it is a machine learning framework, it can easily automate text and voice-based assistant. It offers the basic outline and tools that are absolutely necessary for high-performing, resilient, and contextual assistants.
This
framework is used for natural language understanding, dialogue management, and commands
integration. Rasa X is preferred by developers as it is a free toolset that is used
to improve the contextual assistant, which is built using open-source Rasa.
- ChatterBot
ChatterBot is a Python library of tools, which is extremely useful as it makes it easy to generate automated responses to a user’s input. ChatterBot is one of the most advanced frameworks as it makes use of Machine Learning algorithms to create different types of responses each time. It helps make applications that are the next best thing to human assistants. Developers prefer it as it creates chatbots that are capable of intelligent automated conversations with users.
The
ChatterBot-backed applications are trained to speak any language as they are
language-independent. The framework is designed to create software that can
engage in conversation with a user and provide assistance in various
situations.
BotKit is a leading open-source developer tool that can not only be used for chatbot development but also for developing apps and custom integrations for every major platform. It integrates a variety of communication channels, plug-ins, and open-source libraries for chatbot developers. BotKit also provides an integrated natural learning processing environment from LUIS.ai. BotKit is a flexible system that can expertly handle scripted conversations transactions that involve asking questions to verify identity, applying branching logic, and including dynamic behavior. It is a robust system that can handle conversational software creation of all types.
An increasing population percentage is trusting chatbots and is likely to make a purchase from a website by speaking with a chatbot alone.
Businesses
are realizing the benefits of automating repetitive tasks through chatbots and
making business processes swifter. As consumer insights and data shapes chatbot
behaviour, it is becoming an extremely advanced technology with more human-like
capabilities.
