Dive Brief:
- In testing, Facebook Messenger’s personal assistant M, has proven useful in making reservations, finding area businesses, and shopping.
- Users can text M with almost any question or need, and the assistant responds using a combination of artificial intelligence and live Facebook staffers.
- If it can be scaled up cost-effectively, M could help Facebook realize more revenues by taking a cut of the transactions it facilitates.
Dive Insight:
M, Facebook Messenger’s personal assistant, is proving useful in helping testers with the everyday online activity for which they might otherwise turn to Google, Yelp, or another app. Fielding requests with a combination of machine learning and actual human beings, the helper has a start-to-finish quality that can simplify multiple-part tasks from relatively open-ended requests.
Test users’ leading request so far is to have M find and reserve restaurants, followed by finding brick-and-mortar businesses and assisting with online shopping. M can source and suggest items based on a relatively complicated user query such as “My friends are having a baby and they already have a bunch of clothes and toys,” then offer a click-through to purchase.
The logical extensions to these use cases? Asking M to help plan a wedding, shop for a dinner party, or book a complete vacation—not something one can explain by typing a business category into Yelp's search box. If M achieves wide release, Facebook could attract revenues by taking a percentage of the retail sales it facilitates or selling advertising against the service.
