Live From #BrandifyIt2017: AI, Bots and the Future of Search with Microsoft

1990's and the eventual transition into Mobile/social/apps, brands now have a significant opportunity posed to them with the future of search. In its simplest terms, the future of search is conversational. Conversations are utilized as a platform to discover, access and interact with digital searchers everywhere.

Bing's Allen Klein dawned several important and insightful points around AI, bots and search during the latter half of the 2017 Brandify Summit. Bing and Microsoft, close friends and partners of Brandify, have stayed steadfast in incorporating cognitive capabilities like voice recognition and deep learning to create more relevant and insightful technologies and search queries for online users.

3P's of Conversational Search
Three components of conversational search have served as a solid framework for marketers to develop voice-based strategies to connect with connected customers.

1. Personal-Consumers today are inherently expecting personalization. However, it isn't scalable for brands to make personal connections without AI and learning in a more personal and automated way.
2. Pervasive- Conversation can span across all people because it is the commonality that all individuals share, the greatest opportunity for marketers in terms of voice.
3. Predictive- Based upon what a person's goals and lifestyle. If a task can be done without an individual having to do more, the likelihood towards conversion is higher.

The Opportunity
There are three key players in satisfying the opportunity to make conversation a productive utility.
“3 billion people use messaging and chat apps every day,” Klein cited.


Between humans, bots and digital personal assistants, conversation utilizes intelligence to drive relevance and context between each stakeholder in the process. Using this framework, you can understand the context in which conversations should be happening

Even though bots and conversational technology offer a high utility, discoverability for bots is still a challenge. Microsoft is releasing Bing Chat extensions to drive that discoverability using a bot framework for which to build, deploy and scale more relevant and engaging uses for the average digital user.

Action Items for Brands
Overall, Bing and Microsoft's mission is to ensure that brands are using brands, conversations to drive conversations and relationships with customers using voice-enabled technologies:

1. Think about how AI can change and inform your business.
2. Use the bot framework to write your bot once and run anywhere.
3. Use Bing and Microsoft Cognitive Services to add to conversation and intelligence to your bot.