• by Sara Guaglione , November 2, 2017

Bonnier Corp. has created its first chatbot through its food brand Saveur, in partnership with Skype.

"Readers are looking for ways to cut through the noise of social media, and the Saveur bot allows us to have two-way, interactive conversations with Skype users around the globe,” stated Adam Sachs, editor-in-chief of Saveur.

Via the bot, users can “chat” in a conversational tone with what is essentially an AI robot, accessing Saveur’s recipe database and cooking tips. It's a bit like a cooking assistant. The bot is powered by Snaps, a marketing platform that provides tools to create conversational chatbots, voice skills and social messaging.

Bots have “two major assets that are normally in conflict,” Max Falkowitz, executive digital editor at Saveur, told Publishers Daily: scale and customization.

The partnership with Skype means Saveur’s bot will have access to millions who use the platform, but it will also be able to interact with each user individually, “giving them an on-brand experience tailored to that user's interests," Falkowitz said.

The Saveur team has approached the project as an experiment.

"Getting saveur.com pages and videos in front of new eyes is an important goal for us with this bot, but it's also an opportunity to learn,” Falkowitz said. The bot will help Saveur understand what people seek out and want, as well as determine how the data can be used to improve the pub's editorial efforts.

The hope is that the bot will also reach users who "love food, cook a lot, and plan their trips around where to eat, but may not be familiar with the [Saveur] brand,” Falkowitz said.

The bot’s launch is timed to coincide with Thanksgiving.

“Have an ingredient in mind and looking for a recipe? Simply type the ingredient into your chat with the Saveur bot and it will whip up a few recipe inspirations,” explained a Skype blog post announcing the launch of the chatbot.

For the month of November, "you can also ping the bot at any time with questions, such as: "What can I cook with rutabaga," or "how to bake bread," and it will deliver recipes on the spot. The more you use the bot, the smarter it gets," the post added.

Users can add the Saveur bot to their Skype contacts and chat with it on Skype’s mobile and desktop app. There is also a version of the bot hosted on the Saveur site, specifically on pages related to Thanksgiving.

The bot will message users with recipes every week and provide cooking tips and tricks.

For the December holidays, users will be able to engage with the Saveur bot about making desserts.

Publishers have slowly started experimenting with chatbots as a new way to distribute content and engage with audiences on different platforms. Quartz seems particularly eager to launch bots across a range of topics. The Atlantic Media-owned digital pub created a studio last year to experiment with the use of bots and artificial intelligence technology in journalism.