The Rise of Bots

This work documents the recent rise in popularity of messaging bots: chatterbot-like agents with simple, textual interfaces that allow users to access information, make use of services, or provide entertainment through online messaging platforms. Conversational interfaces have been often studied in their many facets, including natural language processing, artificial intelligence, human-computer interaction, and usability. In this work we analyze the recent trends in chatterbots and provide a survey of major messaging platforms, reviewing their support for bots and their distinguishing features. We then argue for what we call "Botplication", a bot interface paradigm that makes use of context, history, and structured conversation elements for input and output in order to provide a conversational user experience while overcoming the limitations of text-only interfaces.