At Skyscanner, we believe the messaging economy is an area which contains important evolutionary features for the travel industry, and that bots have huge potential to enhance the way people search for and book travel. Senior Technical Manager Pim van Oerle, shares our views on the future of travel planning, some learnings from Skyscanner's bot journey in more depth, as well as do's and don'ts for developing your very own bot. Pim joined Skyscanner joined in 2013. He is working in the Growth Tribe across a wide set of product areas. Visit https://medium.com/@skyscanner for more growth tips and https://www.skyscanner.net/mobile.html for a working example of our product in motion.

1. Pim van Oerle
V.I.R. Berlin, June 22nd 2017
Bots, Chats and Artificial Intelligence
The Future of Travel and User Interaction

2. Skyscanner is a leading travel distribution platform that enables partners
to capitalize on the fast-paced digital travel environment.
The world’s travel search engine
Table
t
Mobil
e
Deskt
op
Flight
s
Hotel
s
Car
hire

3. The numbers
Skyscanner is the
no.1 independent
travel search
engine.
40% growth
year-on-year
1,200+
partners globally
60
million
monthly
visitors
30+
languages
$11.2 billion
airline tickets
booked
56%
repeated
sessions

4. 200
3
2014
2005
2011
2015
2012
2013
2016
200
4
Opening of our China office
Opening of our AMER
office
New app
Tech
companies
acquisition
for further
growth
Joint venture with Yahoo
Japan
Innovation, new
technologies
Skyscanner
acquired
by Ctrip for £1.46bn
Start of our journey
Expand to EU
Expand to APAC
First
app
launch
Unified app
Our journey

5. Our ultimate goal:
to make travel booking as easy as it is today to
buy a book online

6. Paperback
Hardback
Audiobook
Kindle
Still largely the
same static
product
Direct sale or
Marketplace

7. Compare that to air travel
700 airlines
14,000 airports
1000 providers
Near-infinite
route-date
combinations
26 seat
classes
Taxes
Fees

10. As early entrants to the ‘app economy’ we racked up downloads and stars.

11. Three
Million
Apps

12. On average, how many new apps do most
users download per month?

13. None

14. 8+
5-7
4+
3+
2+
1+
None
% of smartphone users, United States only, comScore 3 month average Q4 2014
Average number of monthly app downloads

15. 66% 50%
-
77%
-
95%
Download no
new apps
Drop off during
first use
Average user
loss within 3
days
Average user
loss within 90
days
Apps are hard

16. Comfort, not
convenience, is the most
important thing in
software - and text is an
incredibly comfortable
medium”
Jonathan Libov
Analyst, Union Square Ventures
“

17. Minimum of 9 steps (probably more) and 17 ‘taps’ to get what you want
1
2
3
4
5
6
8
7
9

18. “Get me a BA flight
from Berlin to Edinburgh
leaving tomorrow morning
for less than €100”

19. We created a bots team

20. I always like to rewind to what
people did before technology.
Before the web era, we just
had conversations.
David Marcus
Head of Facebook Messenger
“

21. SMS - not dead yet!

22. It’s been known for a
relatively basic app
to cost £35 in
data charges

23. Old: all software expands
until it includes messaging
New: all messaging
expands until it includes
software”
Benedict Evans
Analyst, Andreessen Horowitz
“

24. Facebook Messenger
Around 900 million MAU and now an established platform

25. Microsoft
Huge investment in bot / cognitive technology across all platforms

26. Voice
Alexa, also Apple and Google

27. 818m
22%
Monthly active
users
Are registered
for payments

28. And already, most
of the top apps in
the stores are
messaging apps
- whether
measured by
downloads or
sessions.
Source: Mary Meeker,
KPCB Internet Trends, 2015

29. Think about the convergence of
comfort and convenience:
apps you already use, improving
services you already use?

30. If apps were in the business of
selling us distraction, bots will
be in the business of buying
us time.”
Suman Deb Roy
Data Scientist, Betaworks
“

31. What is a bot and
when does it
become an agent?
Just how long is a
conversation?

32. An example of using an ‘operator’

33. Personality
Memory
Emotion
Social Learning
Topics
Transactions
What you end up with is a ‘hierarchy of messaging needs’ and how they can be serviced:
Trained intelligence
Algorithms

34. Demo
(we learned a lot along the way)

35. Treat bot users as if they’ve
downloaded an app -
onboarding and
understanding are critical

38. Make it clear whether
you’re talking to a bot or a
human

39. Give Simple Answers to
Complex Questions –
helping someone solve a
problem is more important
than having a conversation
with them

41. Don’t think “build it and
they’ll come” - the vast
majority of people still don’t
know what a bot is. Give
them a reason to use it.
Think about ways to push
and pull the user into a bot.

44. Expect the unexpected -
people will say things you
probably can’t answer

45. “Book me a direct flight from Milan to
Edinburgh tomorrow morning,
arriving before 4pm please”
“…and can I take my dog on the
plane?”

46. Have thick skin - more
than just confusing you,
people often treat bots as
the fourth emergency
service

47. “I’ve lost my keys”
“Shopping baskets are enslaving
humanity, which side are you
on?”

48. Don’t forget who you do
this for…

50. Thank you
Feedback: @Skyscanner_DE
http://bit.ly/SkyscannerXING
More on bot development at Skyscanner:
http://bit.ly/SkyscannersMessengerBot