What are chatbots? Why are they such a big opportunity? How do they work? How can I build one? How can I meet other people interested in chatbots?These are the questions we’re going to answer for you right now.Ready? Let’s do this.(Do you work in ecommerce? Stop reading and click here, we made something for you.)(p.s. here is where I believe the future of bots is headed, you will probably disagree with me at first.)(p.p.s. My newest guide about conversational commerce is up, I think you’ll find it super interesting.)A chatbot is a service, powered by rules and sometimes artificial intelligence, that you interact with via a chat interface. The service could be any number of things, ranging from functional to fun, and it could live in any major chat product (Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, Text Messages, etc.).If you haven’t wrapped your head around it yet, don’t worry. Here’s an example to help you visualize a chatbot.If you wanted to buy shoes from Nordstrom online, you would go to their website, look around until you find the shoes you wanted, and then you would purchase them.If Nordstrom makes a bot, which I’m sure they will, you would simply be able to message Nordstrom on Facebook. It would ask you what you’re looking for and you would simply... tell it.Instead of browsing a website, you will have a conversation with the Nordstrom bot, mirroring the type of experience you would get when you go into the retail store.Watch this video from Facebook’s recent F8 conference (where they make their major announcements). At the 7:30 mark, David Marcus, the Vice President of Messaging Products at Facebook, explains what it looks like to buy shoes in a Facebook Messenger bot.Buying shoes isn’t the only thing chatbots can be used for. Here are a couple of other examples:See? With bots, the possibilities are endless. You can build anything imaginable, and I encourage you to do just that.But why make a bot? Sure, it looks cool, it’s using some super advanced technology, but why should someone spend their time and energy on it?It’s a huge opportunity. HUGE. Scroll down and I’ll explain.You are probably wondering “Why does anyone care about chatbots? They look like simple text based services... what’s the big deal?”Great question. I’ll tell you why people care about chatbots.It’s because for the first time ever people are using messenger apps more than they are using social networks.Let that sink in for a second.People are using messenger apps more than they are using social networks.So, logically, if you want to build a business online, you want to build where the people are. That place is now inside messenger apps.This is why chatbots are such a big deal. It’s potentially a huge business opportunity for anyone willing to jump headfirst and build something people want.But, how do these bots work? How do they know how to talk to people and answer questions? Isn’t that artificial intelligence and isn’t that insanely hard to do?Yes, you are correct, it is artificial intelligence, but it’s something that you can totally do yourself.Let me explain.There are two types of chatbots, one functions based on a set of rules, and the other more advanced version uses machine learning.What does this mean?Chatbot that functions based on rules:Chatbot that functions using machine learning:Bots are created with a purpose. A store will likely want to create a bot that helps you purchase something, where someone like Comcast might create a bot that can answer customer support questions.You start to interact with a chatbot by sending it a message. Click here to try sending a message to the CNN chatbot on Facebook.So, if these bots use artificial intelligence to make them work well... isn’t that really hard to do? Don’t I need to be an expert at artificial intelligence to be able to build something that has artificial intelligence?Short answer? No, you don’t have to be an expert at artificial intelligence to create an awesome chatbot that has artificial intelligence. Just make sure to not over promise on your application’s abilities. If you can’t make the product good with artificial intelligence right now, it might be best to not put it in yet.However, over the past decade quite a bit of advancements have been made in the area of artificial intelligence, so much in fact that anyone who knows how to code can incorporate some level of artificial intelligence into their products.How do you build artificial intelligence into your bot? Don’t worry, I’ve got you covered, I’ll tell you how to do it in the next section of this post.Building a chatbot can sound daunting, but it’s totally doable. You’ll be creating an artificial intelligence powered chatting machine in no time (or, of course, you can always build a basic chat bot that doesn’t have a fancy AI brain and strictly follows rules).You will need to figure out what problem you are going to solve with your bot, choose which platform your bot will live on (Facebook, Slack, etc), set up a server to run your bot from, and choose which service you will use to build your bot.Here are a ton of resources to get you started.Platform documentation:Other Resources:Don’t want to build your own?Now that you’ve got your chatbot and artificial intelligence resources, maybe it’s time you met other people who are also interested in chatbots.Chatbots have been around for decades, but because of the recent advancements in artificial intelligence and machine learning, there is a big opportunity for people to create bots that are better, faster, and stronger.If you’re reading this, you probably fall into one of these categories:Wouldn’t it be awesome if you had a place to meet, learn, and share information with other people interested in chatbots? Yeah, we thought so too.That’s why I created a forum called “Chatbot News”, and it has quickly become the largest community related to Chatbots.The members of the Chatbots group are investors who manage well over $2 billion in capital, employees at Facebook, Instagram, Fitbit, Nike, and Ycombinator companies, and hackers from around the world.We would love if you joined. Click here to request an invite private chatbots community.I have also created the Silicon Valley Chatbots Meetup, register here to be notified when we schedule our first event.From a quick cheer to a standing ovation, clap to show how much you enjoyed this story.CEO of Octane AI, Founder of Chatbots Magazine, YC Alum, Forbes 30 Under 30, product at Ustream for 4 years (sold for $130mil), did digital for Lil Wayne.Chatbots, AI, NLP, Facebook Messenger, Slack, Telegram, and more.