Posted on: January 5, 2017
The Microsoft team has taken notice of the large number of individuals, developers, and businesses responsible for developing bots, tools, and channels that have been popping up since it launched its Bot Framework on Github early in 2016. This trend is a strong indication that the democratization of Artificial Intelligence and the advancement for conversation canvases are taking off and are here to stay.
Software developers have long been interested in the process of creating conversational experiences, but this process demands a total shift in the way that they design and build software. Unlike traditional app development wherein design centers are typically focused on task completion and realized via graphical user interfaces, conversion is inherently fluid. Here, tangents are the norm making for a more complex and difficult design and build process.
Because of this, Microsoft has gone above and beyond to create a simpler means of creating bots. It recently announced its newest service that was built using both the Bot Framework and Azure Functions. Mark our words: the Azure Bot Service will be an industry game changer.
Azure Bot Service is the inaugural public cloud bot service that is powered by the Microsoft Bot Framework. Within this versatile cloud service, developers enjoy the creative license and freedom to build, connect, deploy, and manage highly intelligent and interactive bots that will be active wherever your users are having conversations — from apps and websites to text and social media, and everything in-between. Because the bots run on Azure functions (a completely server-less environment), they are able to fully scale based upon demand. Best of all, you’re only required to pay for the resources that your bots actually consume. Pretty cool, right?
You’re going to see massive improvements in businesses that choose to build and deploy conversational bots of their own. The Azure Bot Service makes it possible for developers to create amazingly intelligent bots faster than ever before – without out-of-the-box templates so that you can customize your bot to fit your business model. The Azure Function App makes it a cinch to deploy your bot once it’s ready, and it will be automatically registered in the Microsoft Bot Framework so that your bot’s exposure will increase rapidly.
Once deployed, your custom bot will be able to take advantage of built-in configurable channels that will improve quality and experience for customer interactions, thus expanding your reach to a larger consumer audience. Ultimately, this offers an increased level of control over your branded experience as you reach the numerous channels that the Microsoft Bot Framework currently supports.
Microsoft Cognitive Services takes things a step further, by making it possible for your bots to “see”, “hear”, and “interpret” information and conversations in a way that allows them to act in a more human fashion. And to further enhance user experience, you can enter just a few lines of code to offer other Azure Services like the expansive Azure Search to your bot’s list of capabilities.
Say goodbye to the days when developing, deploying, and managing your own bots was a challenging and time-consuming process that was scarcely worth your efforts. Azure Bot Services makes use of Azure Functions to provide you with an incredible level of operational agility, thus making it possible for you to scale up quickly and affordably. And you won’t be required to provision or manage bot servers anymore. All of the hard stuff like patching and infrastructure maintenance are already done for you so that you can focus on what you do best – writing code.
Interested in building your own bot and learning more about Azure Bot Service? Contact Uncommon Solutions today and we’ll answer any questions you may have.
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