X
Tech

More than 11,000 bots now live on Facebook Messenger

And more are on the way, with more than 23,000 developers signed up to build bots.
Written by Stephanie Condon, Senior Writer

Just three months since the launch of the Messenger Platform beta program for the development of bots, Facebook on Friday said more than 11,000 bots have launched on the platform.

The social media company also announced several new features for the platform, including one called quick replies, which prompts users to select one of a few specific messages to send, and another called persistent menu, which shows users available commands.

More bots are on the way, with more than 23,000 developers signed up to build bots with tools from Wit.ai, the natural language processing startup that Facebook acquired last year.

More than 900 million people worldwide use Messenger each month, Facebook said. Messenger services overall are growing in popularity and increasingly used as a means of communicating with businesses.

A survey released earlier this week by the Mobile Ecosystem Forum claimed that 66 percent of consumers worldwide have engaged with businesses via chat apps.

Editorial standards