Facebook Messenger 2.1 is here

Facebook has launched it’s 2.1 version of the Messenger App which comes with new features aimed at developers and brands, and is designed to help them reach more potential customers. The new features include built-in natural language processing, a payments SDK, and a global beta that is said to be instrumental in switching between bots and humans on Messenger.

Wit.ai, a company Facebook acquired in 2015, will be providing natural language processing (NLP) technology for Messenger.  Although Wit.ai has always been making NLP available to developers, in Messenger Platform 2.1, it will be available as a built-in feature that will even detect common words and phrases like “hello,” “bye,” “thanks,” date & time, location, amount of money, phone number, and email addresses.

Once the bot detects these kinds of messages from customers, it will automatically respond on the Messenger.

Media reports quoted Messenger head David Marcus as saying, “We have more and more natural language interactions inside of messenger and we want to help third party developers, existing enterprise and customer support, and service centers automate a lot of those interactions, and a big requirement to automation is understanding what people are asking. So what we’re doing right now is we have built-in NLP inside of the Send/Receive API that developers here are using, which means that you will get from the API the intent extraction that you need to automate responses, so it’s a big, big deal. It’s a little geeky, but it actually will enable automation at scale.”

According to Marcus, automation will enable more brands to join Messenger and also lead to more interactions happening on the platform. Follow Spotlife Asia for the latest news and updates.

Along with Messenger Platform 2.1, a new software development kit has been launched to enable payments in Messenger webview. The payments beta is only available in United States as of now.

With the update, conversations can be switched from an automated bot to a human. This functionality called Handovers – which is available as an open beta worldwide — can also come handy in customer onboarding, audience segmentation, or answering FAQs. For more complex questions however, a human would be required.

Developers can also add various buttons with Messenger 2.1 like Get Updates, Shop Now, Get Support, Play Now and Get Started.

With Facebook’s bots being far from perfect, 2.1 also brings with it a handover protocol, which allows a business to transition seamlessly from a bot responding to common queries to more complicated support from a human employee. This Handover protocol service is now in open beta.

In a move that will make life much easier for customers, businesses will now also be able to feature a wider choice of contact buttons on their Facebook page. Joining the currently available “Send Message” button are options for users to Shop Now, Get Support, Get Updates, Play Now or to Get Started.