Kindred launches AI-powered World Cup chatbot
bot is available to UK-based Facebook users during the World Cup and will also be launched in Australia
Unibet has launched a World Cup-focused Facebook Messenger chatbot to help users find more than 1,000 markets on 64 matches during the tournament.
Kindred Futures has been working on the chatbot in partnership with tech firm Artificial Solutions by leveraging their conversational AI platform Teneo to power betting discourse on Messenger.
The bot is available to UK-based Facebook users during the World Cup and will also be launched in the Australian market before the tournament begins on June 14.
The conversational-based interface allows customers to find odds, place bets, and ask about fixtures, with the bot reportedly set-up to answer more than 100 frequently asked questions.
Artificial Solutions chief strategy officer Andy Peart said: “The impact of AI on customer experience is truly significant and an area that is critical to the success of the industry.
“We’ve developed a chatbot with Kindred Futures that has the ability to add an exciting new dimension to the gambling world through its ability to not only understand the nuances of day-to-day speech and gambling language, but also evolve as it learns, delivering a personalised, engaging and frictionless customer experience.”
Kindred is also planning to wheel out the technology across all main European leagues and competitions for the start of the 2018/19 football season.
Head of Kindred Futures Will Mace said: “We very much see this as a complement to some of our other channels like our website and app.
“We want to see how customers use it and make sure we can deliver the functionality within the chatbot to allow them to interact as they wish.
“If you can ask for the odds on a match, why not ask when it is, what the bet rules are, and potentially receive relevant news about the game?
“Depending on customer reaction, we hope to develop this chatbot further as there is a lot of functionality that we can add to it and maybe we can use the same core technology on a voice platform such as Amazon Alexa,” he added.
Last month GVC sportsbook bwin also launched a new chatbot in Germany and Austria ahead of the World Cup as part of a push to improve customer engagement.