A new chat service will make booking tickets easier than ever for BookMyShow customers.
The Indian cinema ticket giant has partnered with startup Niki.ai, a tech company that offers a chatbot app to help book cabs, order food, recharge, pay bills and much more simply via chatting.
The Niki virtual friend Android app was launched in 2015, and is also now available through Facebook Messenger. With more than 100,000 users already, the Tech30 company’s investors include Indian steel magnate Ratan Tata.
Sachin Jaiswal, chief executive of Niki.ai, said: “We are excited to partner with BookMyShow and integrate their movie ticket booking platform on Niki.
“With our vision to provide consumers with the most natural, simple and intelligent mode of transacting online, we have leveraged our technology of artificial intelligence combined with tackling consumer problems to build a one of a kind conversational theatre discovery and ticket booking experience.”
Leveraging on Natural Language processing and Machine Learning, Niki presents a chat-based Natural Language User Interface to mobile users where they can interact with Niki in their natural language. Niki understands how users chat in India, and can decipher words in the context of services that they would like to purchase. It then makes recommendations and can instigate transactions.
Parikshit Dar, director of BookMyShow, said: “BookMyShow has always been keen to partner on initiatives that promote new technologies and we are now excited to take lead in exploring the potential of chatbots in movie ticket bookings in India.
“With 75 per cent of transactions coming through mobile on BookMyShow, we understand the importance of a ‘mobile first strategy’ and believe that our association with Niki.ai is a step forward in this direction.”
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