The Bing Business Bot is here and it is likely only a matter of time before Google rolls out their version of a chatbot which will likely be called something like the Google My Business Chatbot or Google Places Chatbot. Who knows! I do wonder if it will be accessible directly from Google Maps. Hmm…

Bing’s offering currently serves restaurants only but will likely soon be rolling out to all types of businesses, at which time business owners will be wondering how to log into their Bing Places for Business account.

Will Google supply their own user generated answers?

It will be interesting to see how Google implements this. Bing has business owners supply the answers to people’s questions manually. This is likely a quick and easy process of answering questions which they have already answered 10,000 times such as “Do I need a reservation?” or “Is there outdoor seating?”.

However, Google has been asking users of Google Maps for nearly 1 year now for additional details of businesses they have visited. Yelp has been doing the same thing. Here’s an example from Google Maps, asking me about a casual Italian cafe I sometimes visit:

Google asking for information about local places and businesses.

I have been wondering what exactly Google was going to do with this information as they had yet to implement it anywhere in local search.

This is the same type of question the Bing Business Bot answers:

Chatbot answers

Google vs Bing

I wonder who will get to all types of businesses first. Attorneys, doctors, hotels, car dealerships and every other type of business could definitely benefit from this, assuming you rank in the local maps results, that is… It looks like Bing may be first, but who will do it better? And will users even know this option exists on Bing if they are used to “Googling” everything?

Artificial Intelligence in Search Engine Results Pages (AISERP?)

Artificial Intelligence in chatbots handles user’s questions much like Google Home does, and can answer questions asked in a plethora of different ways. For example, a question about outdoor seating could be asked many different ways: “Does this place have outdoor seating?”, or “Can I sit outside?”.

This is just the beginning of interacting with artificial intelligence in search results.

What do you think?

Will Google My Business pages get a chatbot? When will it roll out? Will they ask business owners for manual input or go by user generated feedback? When will we get these new features?

Len
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On May 23, 2017   /   SEO: Local Search   /   2 Comments
2 Comments
  1. Chris Sanders
    1:52 pm on May 23, 2017

    I think google will always provide the best results. I’ve always found bing’s reach and search results disappointing.Google will always come out on top.

    Reply
  2. DJ
    4:32 pm on May 24, 2017

    AISERPs! Yes it will be interesting to see the use of artificial intelligence interaction in search result pages. Good food for thought.

    Reply

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