Facebook:social network prepares to unleash army of robotic helpers which could one day replace human customer services staff.

Automated "customer contact" centres and robotic cold callers are among the grimmer inventions of recent years.

But if you think squabbling with a disembodied voice is irritating, just wait until you end up screaming at your computer screen whilst trying to order a pizza or pay a bill.
Facebook is rumoured to be on the verge of unveiling a range of new "business bots" which will let firms automatically communicate with customers using Messenger .


The social network is expected to show off a range of bots at the f8 conference, a tech conference which starts in San Francisco today.

This could mean that Facebook users are able to buy stuff without ever leaving the social network, potentially giving Mark Zuckerberg's empire a stake in more or less every single interaction its customers perform online.