Skype is the leading provider of free voice and video calling all over the world. The service is also used by millions of people, be it for personal or business reasons, for messaging services.
Having been bought by Microsoft, the Windows OS maker has been doing everything possible to make this application the go-to app when it comes to chatting and calling from multiple platforms online. The company has even gone further to deeply integrate the Skype app in its latest Windows 10 operating system as well as in other services such as Office 365, Outlook and many others.
In a bid to make the Skype app even more functional and effective in offering its calling and messaging services, Microsoft has resolved to its artificial intelligent software – Cortana. With this digital assistant, the Redmond Company now wants you to be able to use Skype to shop, book trips and even plan schedules by holding a simple conversation with Cortana.
This revelation came through courtesy of the Build Conference, with the company demonstrating how this will soon be possible for the millions of people who use Skype on a daily basis. The company says that to put this across, Cortana will broker the conversation with a bot.
Skype will then be able to tell the exact service or company that you want to talk or chat with. After this happens, the application will then bring up a chat bot that will essentially help you out with your problem. Once you are done chatting with the bot, the same application will then get rid of it.
A similar move with Facebook Messenger
With the realization that offering users with free calling and messaging services isn’t dong them any favors, many companies have begun resolving to money-making ways. This is actually what is making apps such as WeChat, LINE and KakaoTalk boom in Asia and even though it seems a little bit late for American players, it’s better than never.
Facebook Messenger, for instance, introduced a way for developers to introduce bots into the app; bots which help their respective customers access their services right from within the Messenger app. In addition to this, Facebook also has a digital assistant that lives within Messenger and its known as M. With the help of humans, this M has the ability to come in at any time and handle the interactions between the user and third party players. This is exactly what Microsoft is doing to Skype with its Cortana and chat bots.
To differentiate its offerings, Microsoft says that it will be adding video-focused chat bots to Skype so that the process can not only take place through text messages but also through videos.
Bots are already available in the app and in fact, developers can also start playing around with their codes. However, the stable version of Skype is yet to come.