What Developers Really Think of Chatbots

Thursday, September 8, 2016

VisionMobile has released its first report on Emerging Technologies, the Chatbot Developer Landscape 2016. This report provides an overview of the emerging landscape of chatbot development and examines developer awareness and perceptions about chatbots. It is based on a large-scale online developer survey that reached an impressive 16,500+ respondents from 145 countries around the world in April and May 2016.

Messaging bots or ‘chatbots’ emerged as one of the most hyped technologies of 2016. Chatbots are computer programs that can maintain automated text conversations with users. Popular messaging apps such as WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, Skype, LINE, and Telegram have amassed hundreds of millions of active users each. Facebook Messenger, and Facebook-owned WhatsApp, even crossed the 1 billion active users mark.

While many challenges remain, chatbots promise to become a new channel for reaching mobile users alongside mobile apps. There is an eager audience of developers looking for the next big thing after opportunities in the app market become increasingly difficult to find. Much like in mobile, the winners in the messaging platform race will be decided by developers. Apple and Google, the undisputed leaders of the mobile app world, fall far behind Facebook, Microsoft and even smaller messaging apps in seizing the chabot opportunity.

Some highlights from the report are:

- The efforts of Facebook, Microsoft and Slack to promote chatbot development show early results. Over 80% of developers worldwide are aware about opportunities in chatbots.

- The chatbot ecosystem is still in its early stages. Less than 25% of developers who are aware of chatbots are convinced of the chatbot appeal.

- Awareness and interest in chatbot development grows with experience in mobile development.

- Apple and Google, the undisputed leaders of the mobile app world, fell far behind Facebook, Microsoft, and even smaller messaging apps in seizing the chatbot opportunity.