On Tuesday, Facebook announced the implementation of chatbot support to Messenger at its F8 developer conference. The “Bots for Messenger” feature is part of the latest Messenger update — a previous update introduced a “Bots and Businesses” section.
A beta version of the platform will be live today, says Head of Messenger David Marcus, and companies can start developing chat bots for Facebook. The Facebook Messenger platform has 900 million active users and 50 million businesses on the platform, according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.
To use the new chat bots, use the search bar at the top of the Messenger app. When you place your cursor in the search field, Facebook Messenger will auto-populate bot suggestions based on what it thinks you want. The messenger bots have the ability to send links, display images, and provide descriptions of services, features or things.
“As part of the new Messenger Platform, bots can provide anything from automated subscription content like weather and traffic updates, to customized communications like receipts, shipping notifications, and live automated messages — all by interacting directly with the people who want to get them,” reads Facebook’s description of the platform. “The Messenger Send / Receive API will support not only sending and receiving text, but also images and interactive rich bubbles containing multiple calls-to-action.”
Recently, Facebook announced a new feature, called Messenger Code, which shows the user’s profile photograph with circles and dots surrounding it. Simply scan the Messenger Code with your smartphone camera and the individual is added as a contact. Users can also access Messenger on their desktop without going to Facebook, and all Messenger accounts will now have a dedicated URL. The format of the URL is m.me/[username].
