The Business of Chatbots with Maximiliano Contieri

Jorge

7 years ago

Though chatbots have existed for some time, everything changed once Facebook opened their platform a few years ago and has now made chatbots buzz around artificial intelligence.

Chatbots are little more advanced today but it’s safe to say that we’re in the experimental phase of chatbot development and adoption. And companies that want to approach artificial intelligence will have to experiment to drive innovation or be left behind. It’s how Conversa Lab approaches projects with prospects that are interested in developing a chatbot for their business.

Continuing from last week’s episode on The State of Chatbots in Spain and Europe with Patricia Durán, today I’m joined by Maximiliano Contieri, CTO and co-founder of Conversa Lab; a 2 year old chatbot development company from Argentina. Maximiliano has been making software for 25 years, and is also a teacher at the University of Buenos Aires.

In our chat we talked about the business of chatbots, how they’re being adopted in South America and how a business can start developing their own chatbot from technical perspective.

Below are some questions I asked Maximiliano:

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You mention you built your first bot 20 years ago. From your point of view, are chatbots the future or fad? Why are they more relevant today than 20 years ago?
What is the status of Chatbots in Argentina / South America? What trends have you observed?
Why should companies embrace chatbots? In what way do they deliver value to the users / customers?
What will trigger adoption of chatbots in the enterprise?
Are there specific industries that benefit the most from chatbots?
The market for botmakers is huge because the barriers to entry are low. With that said, what is the business model for botmakers? And how can they differentiate from one another?
The chatbot industry is young and fragmented. This means it’s hard for companies to make sense of it and how to start. What do you advise companies to do with regards to opting to developing a chatbot themselves versus partnering with an agency to help them develop and implement it?
What chatbot applications have you seen lately that caught your attention?
In your daily life, do you use chatbots to achieve your objectives?
What features does a functional bot have? What makes a great bot experience?
What are the limitations of chatbots and how do you overcome them?
In general, how do you see chatbots evolving over the next 5 years and what will drive their evolution?