You can find the episode about chatbots and all other episodes of our podcast on Spotify, iTunes, Deezer, Google Podcasts, Pocket Casts, Radio Public, Breaker, Overcast, Castbox, Podcast Addict and Anchor.
For unknown reasons, the last week of June sees a significant increase in events in Munich's startup scene. These include Tech Days (June 28) and the Plug & Play Germany Summit (June 28 and 29). We briefly cover both events in the podcast, and our calendar also features many more.
Chatbots: Close to the singularity?
According to various media reports, a software engineer at Google recently concluded that the chatbot he was working with had developed its own consciousness. This, of course, wasn't the case, and the singularity is still a long way off. However, we're taking this incident as an opportunity to delve deeper into the topic of chatbots. In the current podcast episode, we'll first examine (starting at minute 2:00) how such a bot actually works. We'll also discuss Joseph Weizenbaum and his program Eliza, which was said to be intelligent as early as 1966. You can find the aforementioned list of open source datasets here. here.
After these remarks, we will then turn our attention to the Munich startups and their solutions. We begin with E-Bot 7 (from minute 4:45). The company develops chatbots for existing CRM customer service systems. For their training and quality control, the startup relies on a hybrid agent and AI solution. A human agent retains control over the bot's messages until it is operating reliably and error-free. This approach not only won over several investors, but the founders celebrated their exit just last year.
A bot for every channel
At Messengerpeople It's all about the numerous different channels through which the bot can communicate. For this purpose, the Munich-based company has developed a SaaS solution for messenger communication. Using the so-called Chatbot Builder, their customers can then create a bot tailored to their needs – without any programming knowledge. We explain exactly how this works starting at minute 7:40. Incidentally, after the seed round in 2016, Messengerpeople didn't need to raise any further capital, which suggests the success of the concept – as does the exit last year, in which the startup was sold to a Swedish company for €48 million.
A little further away from the exit is Chatchamp (from minute 9:40). The startup focuses entirely on e-commerce with its chatbot. This allows it to better address the needs of online retailers. To this end, the Munich-based company offers, among other things, special engagement tools and detailed analytics for sales generated through chats. To train its bot, Chatchamp uses not only the chats themselves but also user behavior in online shops.
Convaise Ultimately, its solution is aimed at regulated markets and aims primarily to support organizations and public administration in transitioning their communication with customers and citizens to a chat-based system. This will enable complicated forms or long phone calls to be completed easily via chat in the future. You can learn more about the startup starting at minute 11:20.
The investor Neosfer
With Neosfer In this episode (starting at minute 13:05), we introduce an investor who many may know better by his old name: Main Incubator. The name change came after the early-stage investor at Commerzbank decided to no longer invest solely in fintechs, but also to include greentech startups in his portfolio.
