In the beginning (1966), there was ELIZA – she was the first bot of her kind, had roughly 200 lines of code and was extremely smart. But you probably don’t know her. Later, came PARRY who was smarter than ELIZA (and could imitate a paranoid schizophrenic patient). But you probably don’t know PARRY either. Or ALICE (1995) or JABBERWACKY (2005). But you do know Siri! And that right there is brilliant marketing.
The bots have existed for a long time now but they weren’t always popular until Apple. Always one step ahead of its competition, Apple not only introduced the services of a chatbot but also used it to create a unique brand image. It killed two birds with one metaphoric stone known as Siri. There was no going back from there.