«Hello chatbot, can I generate you with GeneXus?»

The ANSWER is:

—Yes, absolutely!

This risky choice of title is intended to highlight the importance of conversational interfaces in the context of multiple channels and experiences we live in. You are invited to read this short article that ends with a comprehensive 1 hour and 30 minute webinar covering the basics, technical details, and use cases of scripted and NLP-based chatbots generated with GeneXus.

Is it possible that chatbots are a passing fad? According to Gartner, the answer is no. The trend shows that by 2022, 70% of executives will use conversational platforms on a daily basis.

It seems, then, that chatbots are here to stay and this forecast is not surprising given the growth of Artificial Intelligence and its impact on robots. In addition, it predicts a landscape with new horizons to which we should pay attention.

Also, in the GeneXus Community Wiki you will find up-to-date technical information about chatbots with GeneXus.

Conversational interface, UX, and content

Now more than ever, the abundance of these conversational interfaces in our daily interactions requires a strategy for communicating with users to ensure effective solutions. How is it done? In my opinion, by combining communication needs, available technologies, and content –written or spoken–, giving it a central role because the conversation with a chatbot has to be essentially close and useful.

Personally –and since I work in writing–, I think chatbot content is one of the most interesting challenges regarding conversational interfaces. The objective is to give them personality and tone, as well as usefulness, to make conversation a natural and satisfactory part of the UX process.

So those of us who write have a new path to walk along with natural language processors and chatbots, and we are just getting started in this new profession called UX writing.

Here is an article about UX Conversational Design companies that have recently won awards for their ability to create chatbot content in an innovative and effective way with an outstanding UI.

Chatbot modelers and generators, the UI side of the UX sphere

The vibrant software industry, and more precisely the GeneXus Community, is facing the challenge and the great opportunity of modeling chatbots, enabling their customers to expand their business and explore multiple channels.

Since GeneXus has made the chatbot generator available to the Community in beta version, which will be fully released with GeneXus 17, this is the perfect time to learn how to use the tool. So, I encourage you to watch this webinar given by my colleagues Rodrigo Álvarez and Rodrigo Méndez that provides a very good starting point.

GeneXus Chatbots Webinar

In the following webinar (in Spanish) the technical characteristics of chatbots will be explained in detail; also, you will see: