The Kik Bot Platform
Let&#x27;s take an example of a general personal assistant chat bot experience and compare it to a brand chat bot experience. Remember in both cases we are typing our conversation not speaking it<p>General&#x2F;PA chat bot
Me: What movies are playing tonight?<p>BOT: HBO has XYZ from 8PM to 10PM, UVW from 10PM to midnight. Starz has ABC from 7:30PM to 10:00PM, DEF from 10PM to 12:30AM<p>Me: No I mean what movies are playing in theaters tonight?<p>BOT: AMC at Location 1 near you is playing blah blah blah, Century Cinemas at Location 2 near you is playing blah blah blah, (lists off 3 other theaters with movie times)<p>Me: I want 2 tickets to blah blah at AMC tonight<p>BOT: Ticket price at AMC.com is $22. Reply with AMC to buy them. Ticket price at Fandango.com is $23. Reply with FAN to buy them.<p>ME: AMC<p>BOT: Here are your tickets. <a href="http:&#x2F;&#x2F;amc.com&#x2F;tickets&#x2F;23BDK532KDJF93434" rel="nofollow">http:&#x2F;&#x2F;amc.com&#x2F;tickets&#x2F;23BDK532KDJF93434</a><p>BRAND CHAT BOT EXPERIENCE
ME: What movies are playing tonight?<p>AMC BOT: At an AMC near you, ABC is playing at 7:30pm, DEF is playing at 7:00PM, GHI is playing at 8:30PM, ABC iMax is playing at 9:00PM<p>(I switch to the Century Cinemas bot)<p>ME: What movies are playing tonight?<p>CENTURY BOT: At a Century near you, XYZ is playing at 8:00PM, ABC is playing at 8:30PM, GHI is playing at 8:30PM<p>(I switch to another theater&#x27;s chat bot)<p>ME: What movies are playing tonight?<p>BOT: Movie 1 is playing at 9PM, Movie 2 at 9:30PM, Movie 3 at 9:30PM .....<p>So in the end a general chat bot will be more user friendly than going to each individual brand&#x27;s chat bot. That basically means developer&#x27;s not associated with a brand will be building aggregate bots for specific verticals because building a general BOT that addresses any query is impractical for any single developer. Then what happens when multiple developers all target the same vertical? The BOT marketplace becomes littered with duplicates and becomes like the Android marketplace. So basically BOTS = APPS but with a chat interface and some rudimentary NLP rather than a UI.