The History and Evolution of Chatbots

Growing up, sci-fi movies always fascinated me. Remember the distress message from Princess Leia, in the form of a 3D hologram in Star Wars. Or the video calling scene from the movie Thunderbirds. By far one of my favorites is the character, J.A.R.V.I.S. an AI (Artificial Intelligence) from Iron Man, which also resembles the innovation of chatbots in today's time. Sci-fi has been the inspiration behind many such innovations.

Developed by Tony Stark, J.A.R.V.I.S. (Just A Rather Very Intelligent System) is an intelligent and self-aware bot that responds to Tony. Connected to global information networks, it used holograms as an interface to communicate with Tony and give him access to any information he needed.

Inspired by this Sci-fi AI character, Mark Zuckerberg created his own version of J.A.R.V.I.S., a personal virtual assistant to manage his home.

Apple and Google created their versions of J.A.R.V.I.S. for their users in the form of Siri and Google Assistant (which would have functionality like J.A.R.V.I.S. at a low dimension). Businesses are using this technology to connect with customers, answer their queries, and maintain a good customer satisfaction rate.

These conversational bots, called chatbots have a long history of evolution. They have evolved from a basic text-based chat window to an advanced, interactive conversational platform. The coming segment discusses how chatbots have evolved and what they are capable of doing today.

A Brief History of Chatbots 

While many would agree that chatbots have become a buzzword recently, the concept has existed since people began developing ways to interact with computers. The evolution of chatbots can be categorized into three stages; Basic chatbots like ELIZA, ALICE, and SmarterChild; conversational AI chatbots like Siri and Alexa; and Generative AI chatbots like ChatGPT and BARD. So, let's dive in;

1. Eliza

Year Created: 1966
Creator: Joseph Weizenbaum

ELIZA was the first chatbot and was designed to mimic human conversation by pattern matching and substitution in text. Users interacted with ELIZA by typing messages, which the program then matched to pre-written responses. ELIZA was designed to simulate a psychotherapist, and to Weizenbaum's surprise, many people began confiding their deepest thoughts to it. This led to speculation that chatbots could one day be indistinguishable from humans, but Weizenbaum disagreed. He saw machines as tools, not replacements for human thought, and argued that computers could only understand language in a specific context and couldn't understand human language in a general sense.

2. PARRY

Year created: 1972
Creator: Kenneth Colby

PARRY was another early chatbot. It simulated a person with schizophrenia and was tested using a variation of the Turing test. Human judges, interacting with the program via a remote keyboard, were unable to distinguish PARRY from a real person with schizophrenia with more than random accuracy.

3. Jabberwacky:

Year Created: 1988
Creator: Rollo Carpenter

Jabberwacky aimed to simulate natural human conversation in an entertaining way. Some individuals used it for academic research purposes through its webpage since its inception.

4. Dr. Sbaitso:

Year Created: 1992
Creator: Creative Labs

Dr. Sbaitso was one of the earliest chatbots to incorporate AI. It was known for its full voice-operated chat program, which simulated conversing with a psychologist.

5. A.L.I.C.E. (Artificial Linguistic Internet Computer Entity):

Year Created: 1995
Creator: Richard Wallace

A.L.I.C.E., created by Richard Wallace in 1995, was a universal language processing chatbot that used heuristic pattern matching to carry conversations. It was the first chatbot to run on a computer named Alice. The program worked with the XML schema known as artificial intelligence markup language (AIML), which helped specify conversation rules. Internet. 

6. Smarter Child:

Year Created: 2001
Smarter Child came before Siri, working through AOL IM and MSN Messenger. It could chat with users and quickly find information from other sources. Microsoft made their own version of Smarter Child later, but by then, most people had moved on from AIM. This version was aimed at 18- to 24-year-olds in the U.S.

7. Siri:

Year Created: 2010
Creator: Apple

Siri represented a big leap in chatbot technology, acting as a smart personal assistant with a user-friendly interface. A recent patent application from Apple describes a new feature where users can chat with Siri through Messages, asking questions and having conversations.

This new patent expands on an earlier one, now integrating audio, video, and image files more deeply. Like regular texting and Facebook Messenger, Apple's patent describes a Siri that can perform tasks without needing users to speak out loud, which could be handy in public places. Users can interact with Siri using text, audio, images, and videos, resulting in a more engaging experience with the digital assistant. The patent even gives examples of conversations between Siri and users in Messages, with users asking questions.

8. Google Now/Google Assistant:

Year Created: 2012
Creator: Google

Google Now, introduced by Google in 2012, aimed to provide users with relevant information based on their location and the time of day. It was part of a series of updates and changes to the mobile search interface, which included a voice-activated assistant to rival Apple's Siri.

Initially, Google Now focused on delivering location and time-specific information but evolved into a more comprehensive platform with various content categories presented as cards. Some refer to it as predictive search. It was primarily designed for smartphones and has since been enhanced with additional features. In 2017, Google replaced Google Now with Google Assistant, aligning with their aggressive growth strategy in search. The goal remains simple: Google aims to deliver information in a user-friendly format, anticipating users' needs even before they realize them.

9. Cortana:

Year Created: 2014
Creator: Microsoft

Cortana was integrated into Windows Phone devices and Windows 10 PCs. It uses voice recognition and algorithms to respond to voice commands. Cortana can perform tasks like reminders based on time, places, or people, send emails and texts, create and manage lists, chit-chat, play games, and find facts, files, locations, and info among others.

10. Alexa:

Year Created: 2014
Creator: Amazon

Alexa is a smart assistant that is built into devices like the Amazon Echo and Echo Dot, and there are also third-party devices that have Alexa built-in. All you have to do is say “Alexa, tell me about today’s weather” or “Alexa, suggest me some good Korean restaurant” and she will assist you.

Just with your voice commands you can play music, set alarms, stream videos, get news or weather reports, control your smart-home products, and more. Moreover, they have enabled developers to build and publish skills for Alexa using the Alexa Skills Kit (ASK).

11. ChatGPT:

Year Created: 2022
Creator: OpenAI

ChatGPT is a large language model that is designed to assist users in generating human-like text based on the given input. It can be utilized for a range of tasks, including content generation and language translation. The model is trained on a huge amount of data, allowing it to generate text that is often difficult to distinguish from text written by a human. For example, this abstract itself was created by ChatGPT. If you want to supercharge your digital platform with ChatGPT, then explore our ChatGPT integration services.

Chatbots in the Recent Past 

Chatbots have an edge in the recent past because of two prominent reasons: 

1. Messaging Platforms
2. Technology  

In 2015, Telegram opened its app for developers to build and deploy bots. Following this, Facebook opened its messaging platform, the Facebook Messenger for bot development and it garnered the attention of users as well as developers. Now, almost every popular platform including Whatsapp, Slack, We Chat, IMO offers the facility to build a chatbot.

Over time, there has been an improvement in the abilities of a chatbot and technology has been a real contributor to it. Artificial intelligence and its technologies have been helping developers in taking chatbots and their functionality to the next level. Today, chatbots are performing financial transactions, processing orders, resolving customer queries, and a lot more. We will be talking about it in detail in the upcoming segment.

Chatbots: Then and Now 

In the past, chatbots were pretty basic. They were either rule-based, where you had to choose from a list of options, or they were AI-based, trying too hard to be human and not doing a great job. But now, there are new chatbots that are smarter and actually helpful.

The old rule-based chatbots were like talking to a robot. You had to pick from a list of options or type in a pre-formatted answer. They were limited and predictable, but at least you knew what to expect.

The AI-based chatbots were supposed to be more human-like, but they often missed the mark and ended up being more frustrating than helpful.

But now, there are new chatbots that are smarter and more helpful. They use a mix of rule-based and AI-based techniques to understand what you're saying and respond in a way that feels natural. They're not trying to be human, they're just trying to do their job – and they're doing it well.

So, what's changed? Well, chatbots have become more intelligent. They can come a long way and now understand more complex requests and respond in a way that feels more natural. They have evolved in functionality and interface, and their significance to the business world cannot be ignored. Here is a glimpse of how progressive chatbots have been so far.  

Tasks and Roles Performed: Chatbots have been a great conversational agent for businesses. For a long time, they were an efficient replacement for a customer service provider who is there for the customers 24/7. However, with chatbots being able to take on new roles and responsibilities, they have become an alternative to mobile apps. 

From simple conversations to complex transactions, chatbots are made to do almost everything. They are now used by businesses, irrespective of the industry, and are used for placing orders, checking the status of orders, booking flight tickets, making financial transactions, handling complex queries of the clients/customers, improving marketing campaigns, and a lot more. In short, chatbots are new apps for businesses. 

Enhancement in UI Elements: As the chatbots evolve with better abilities, there is a shift in their UI elements as well. They have a Conversational User Interface (CUI) which brings a change to the way human-computer interaction occurs.

CUI uses Natural Language Processing (NLP) that enables computers to understand, analyze, and create meaning from human language. NLP also takes up and processes unstructured inputs (such as questions with spelling mistakes), helps in sentiment analysis, and more.

Depending upon the functionalities performed, several graphic elements are added to the chatbot. Along with text messages, there are carousels, buttons, quick replies, web view, group chat, and the option to share audio, video, document files, images, GIFs, and more. 

Technology Stack for Development: Chatbots are made to do a lot of things. Depending upon what a chatbot has to do, different technologies are adopted by the developers to build a chatbot. There are tools (like ChatFuel, API.ai, Botsify) that help to build a chatbot with less technical expertise. Then, there are technologies like Machine Learning, Natural Language Processing, RPA that can take chatbot abilities to the next level. Such abilities can be integrated by opting for custom chatbot development. 

Modes of Communication: Chatbots have evolved to enable text and voice communication possible. Chatbots working in collaboration with virtual assistants or smart speakers allow users to give input and receive output in a voice format. Here is a perfect example of it- Mark Zukerberg's JARVIS. 

Chatbot with Voice Interface: Mark Zuckerberg’s Personal Assistant

Significance of Chatbots for Businesses

As chatbots evolve with better functionality and features, businesses, irrespective of the industry, have been using chatbots to improve efficiency in operations, customer service, cut down errors, and more. While chatbots have various benefits to offer, businesses need to examine the right use case of this technology and then implement it. 

To get started, you can check out our guide sharing the best practices to launch a customer service chatbot for your business.

Still need help to launch a chatbot for your business? Set a free consultation session with our chatbot expert who analyzes businesses to understand the best use cases of chatbots and help you out with the best technology stack for chatbot development.