• by Felicia Greiff , April 12, 2016

Among other things, bots can offer weather and traffic updates and e-commerce updates like receipts and shipping notifications.

A video from Facebook shows how someone might interact with a 1-800-Flowers bot, which helps the user select a gift bouquet of roses and asks for details about the order.

Additionally, developers and businesses will be able to access documents to build bots for Messenger, which can be submitted to Facebook for review and gradual approval. 

So far, partners include 1-800-Flowers.com, CNN, Expedia, Fandango, Philz Coffee and Shopify.

Talk of bots is everywhere -- from discussions about workforce automation to Microsoft's Twitter bot disaster -- and of course, how they're threatening the automated ad ecosystem.

Earlier today, Facebook announced that within Messenger, users can now share Dropbox files and talk to friends using a small round window (so the rest of your screen can be used to message others--or if you have an Android phone, use apps).

According to the company, 900 million people and 50 million businesses use Messenger.