Six months ago, Facebook Inc. said it would open its Messenger service, making it possible for businesses to build virtual assistants that can chat with the one billion-plus real people who use the communications platform each month. Since then, developers have created more than 33,000 such “chatbots,” which have icons and nicknames that at first glance might not appear that different from a friend or relative in a user’s contact...

Source: Wall Street Journal November 03, 2016 16:59 UTC