What is a bot and what are bots used for?

In recent years the term bot is becoming more related to robots capable of interacting with users through natural language, either written or spoken.

You use bots on a daily basis and probably didn’t realize it. With the development of apps, calling on the phone to order food delivery seems a thing of the past, now everything is done through mobile apps without the need to talk to an operator. 

Well, you should know that in that order you are ordering a task to a bot. Let us tell you more!

Definition of the Concept

Under this second meaning, bots (apheresis of a robot) are software or computer programs that use artificial intelligence (AI) to perform automated tasks over the Internet as if they were human beings.

They are capable of performing a large number of tasks (editing texts, moderating conversations, answering questions, sending emails) and their responses are increasingly accurate and precise.

Although it may not explain to you exactly how to win without maximum betting online like experts, it achieves high levels of satisfaction among their customers, who can perform actions at any time of the day. Whether it’s making a reservation at a restaurant or requesting an answer to a question, bots are here to help you.

What Are Bots Capable Of?

This technology of the future has been programmed to perform a multitude of actions to help Internet users in their daily tasks. Here are some of the things they can do:

• Provide answers much faster than a human being would and also, they have a differential advantage, they can be called upon at any time of the day.
• Learn from each conversation with users and, as a result, simulate more accurate human conversations. One example is Anna, the IKEA chatbot.
• Automated text editing. Its tasks include correcting spelling mistakes, maintaining consistency in links, proposing predictive text based on user conversations, and so on.
• Or perform actions such as making reservations at a restaurant, when we tell it to do so.

How Bots Work

Bots make use of artificial intelligence, machine learning, and cognitive computing specifically programmed to mimic sophisticated tasks that humans can perform, replicating the processing of the human brain in the following aspects:

• Natural language processing: They must be prepared to structure, understand, and assign meaning to sentences. This phase is known as NLU or natural language understanding.
• Reasoning: They have to know how to systematize and organize ideas to solve certain problems. Once we understand what we have been told, we must have the logic to be able to perform the expected action in that situation.
• Navigation and Planning: Of action in various environments for which they are programmed.

Most Famous Types of bots

Life is not all that pretty. On the Internet there are several types of bots, some are designed to help users in their daily tasks, and others to develop malicious actions. We will tell you which are the most common ones:

Social Network Bots

Social networks are part of the daily life of most people and are the best way to share content among your community of followers. Remember, if you haven’t published it, it doesn’t exist!

We can find bots on social networks like Instagram, Telegram, or Twitter. These can help you boost the content of your social network and even your website, getting them to reach a wider audience and consequently, increase sales.

Voice Bots

Voice bots, better known as voice-activated virtual assistants, are, together with chatbots, the ones we use the most in our daily lives. The best known are Siri, Alexa, and Cortana from Apple, Amazon, and Microsoft.

These small assistants are able to advise the user and solve their questions through a conversation as any person would do. Currently, in view of the great reception they have had, many companies are trying to include them in the development of their activities as the first line of innovation and to ensure an unprecedented user experience.

Spam Bots

E-mail is one of the most useful ways to reach a large number of people on the Internet. Hence, all companies use it as a method of outreach, such as a newsletter, for example.

We have all suffered the abuse of spam emails in our inboxes. The truth is that there are bots created especially to send promotional emails that mostly seek to deceive the user, obtain sensitive data, or fraud.