A new report from VentureBeat shows that Microsoft’s Bing search engine can now search for bots for chat apps like Facebook Messenger, Skype and Slack. The bots come in various categories, sorted by travel, sports, news, and so forth, and are discoverable with the phrasing such as “Sports Bots.”
Just like regular Bing searches for weather, movies, or sports, the searches for bots show up in a dedicated area under “web.” The current selection of bots are not really that impressive, but the range is still very wide and can even be narrowed down by clicking on a dedicated tab for a specific of the total of five bot platforms within the search.
This latest news comes as Microsoft launched Skype video bots and bot payments in preview. As you recall, bots were a big theme at Microsoft’s Build conference last year, part of their then new “Conversation as a Platform” initiative. With that so, it’s assuring to see that the company is stepping things up and making bots more discoverable for the average consumer and the experienced developer.