Chatbot or virtual assistant, what are they?


Chatbot or virtual assistant, what are they?




They are the stars of the year, but they are different technologies



It's the age of chatbots, there's Siri, Alexa and Cortana. Yes but no. The use of chatbots has grown rapidly in recent months and also virtual assistants. These two concepts are not synonymous and, although their functionality is very similar, they are different things.

The first to arrive was Siri and now it is the turn of the landing of Google and Alexa in the market of virtual assistants in Spain. In the United States, according to figures from Voicebot, they have become true life partners with more than 50 million users in the country alone.

There are no total figures of the use of chatbos, but they are the perfect friend of the companies. Any company can launch a chatbot through companies specialized in its creation and training with the aim of boosting their business communications and automate the relationship with a customer in a conversational format to which we are all accustomed, the chat.

However, the virtual assistants are created by the big technology companies with the ambition to become our personal assistant, solving all the doubts that may arise at any time.

This is one of the great differences, although if the focus is placed on its functionality another one of the great discrepancies appears. The objective of the virtual assistants is broad, the one of the chatbots is more specific, they are born with the purpose of solving a clear action with a concrete objective, usually focused on the resolution of frequent questions, to lighten the bulk of work to the contact centers or the capture of leads. In fact, these assistants will replace the search engines as we know them now, thanks to the development of the use of the voice by the users at the time of performing any search.

In addition, chatbots are developed in web pages, messaging apps, social networks or applications; the virtual assistants are born in themselves as a new application in the mobile and are housed in a completely new environment that is already known as Home Speakers or Home Devices, such as Google Home, Amazon Echo or Apple HomePod.

These devices are a new platform to exploit for the introduction of chatbots and become the soul of the Smart Speakers that will soon be part of the usual furniture of any home. "Being on the home devices of homes is a great opportunity for companies.

The technology companies are making a decided bet, clear example is that Amazon's Alexa will come relatively soon. As a result of this new revolution, it is increasingly common for companies to be interested in developing for Google Home, or skills for Amazon Echo, "says Ángel Hernández, managing partner of Chatbot Chocolate.

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