The Return of the Chat Bot (And This Time They Work!)

Those of you who have seen me speak over the years know that I love to give examples of bad self-service technology, and nothing has received more of my stage time than the terrible early products for automated chat dialogs, aka chat bots, response robots, or avatars.  Call them what you will, they were bad.  In fact, one of the largest US wireless carriers did a huge launch a few years ago with a certain chat bot with a female personality, which was derided in the press as a “repulsive cockroach-like alien” because of its inability to answer even the most basic question.