There are plenty of options for creating chatbots. From Amazon to Watson, there are versatile platforms that require strong developer skills and others that guide you step-by-step through the process of creating a chatbot. But choosing a platform may not even be the right place to start, or the most important part of the process. Really taking advantage of chatbot technology requires the right kind of planning and thought. And it might just require a bit of machine training.

In this session, we'll start with a high-level orientation to how chatbots work and then jump right into the design and development of a simple chatbot. You’ll identify the problem your chatbot is trying to solve, establish some goals for your chatbot, and map out a handful of choices your chatbot will make. By the end of this session, you'll have a working chatbot in the cloud that you can deploy on a variety of channels such as Facebook, Skype, Slack, and more. As well, your chatbot can be deployed in modalities such as text, voice, or email.  You'll know how to think about designing chatbots and you'll walk away with tools to help guide you through that process.

In this session, you will learn:

• How to think through the design goals of your chatbot
• Considerations for choosing a chatbot platform
• One way to map your chatbot logic and choices
• The role of Natural Language Processing for chatbots
• How chatbots integrate with other technology solutions
• How to build and deploy a simple chatbot online

Audience:

Designers, developers, managers   

Technology discussed:

A web-based chatbot development platform, Rasa, an open source toolset to build contextual AI assistants, Botpress, an open source chatbot framework and platform

Participant technology requirements:

A laptop with internet connectivity. You will also need the ability to download and edit an MS Word document that will guide you through parts of the process.