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Improving artificial intelligence (AI) technology and the proliferation of messaging apps — which enable users and businesses to interact through a variety of mediums, including text, voice, image, video, and file sharing — are fueling the popularity of chatbots.

These software programs use messaging as an interface through which to carry out various tasks, like checking the weather or scheduling a meeting. Bots are still nascent and monetization models have yet to be established for the tech, but there are a number of existing strategies — like "as-a-service" or affiliate marketing — that will likely prove successful for bots used as a tool within messaging apps.

Chatbots can also provide brands with value adds — services that don't directly generate revenue, but help increase the ability of brands and businesses to better target and serve customers, and increase productivity. These include bots used for research, lead generation, and customer service.

A new report from BI Intelligence investigates how brands can monetize their chatbots by tailoring existing models. It also explores various ways chatbots can be used to cut businesses' operational costs. And finally, it highlights the slew of barriers that brands need to overcome in order to tap into the potentially lucrative market. 

Here are some of the key takeaways: bi intelligence

• Chatbot adoption has already taken off in the US with more than half of US users between the ages of 18 and 55 having used them, according to exclusive BI Intelligence survey data.
• Chatbots boast a number of distinct features that make them a perfect vehicle for brands to reach consumers. These include a global presence, high retention rates, and an ability to appeal to a younger demographic.
• Businesses and brands are looking to capitalize on the potential to monetize the software. BI Intelligence identifies four existing models that can be successfully tailored for chatbots. These models include Bots-as-a-Service, native content, affiliate marketing, and retail sales.
• Chatbots can also provide brands with value adds, or services that don't directly generate revenue. Bots used for research, lead generation, and customer service can cut down on companies' operational costs.
• There are several benchmarks chatbots must reach, and barriers they must overcome, before becoming successful revenue generators. 

In full, the report:

• Explains the different ways businesses can access, utilize, and distribute content via chatbots.
• Breaks down the pros and cons of each chatbot monetization model.
• Identifies the additional value chatbots can provide businesses outside of direct monetization.
• Looks at the potential barriers that could limit the growth, adoption, and use of chatbots and therefore their earning potential.

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BI Intelligence

This is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here.

Insurance companies have long based their pricing models and strategies on assumptions about the demographics of their customers. Auto insurers, for example, have traditionally charged higher premiums for parents of teenage drivers based on the assumption that members of this demographic are more likely to get into an accident.

But those assumptions are inherently flawed, since they often aren't based on the actual behaviors and characteristics of individual customers. As new IoT technologies increasingly move into the mainstream, insurers are able to collect and analyze data to more accurately price premiums, helping them to protect the assets they insure and enabling more efficient assessment of damages to conserve resources.

A new report from BI Intelligence explains how companies in the auto, health, and home insurance markets are using the data produced by IoT solutions to augment their existing policy pricing models and grow their customer bases. In addition, it examines areas where IoT devices have the potential to open up new insurance segments.

 Here are some of the key takeaways:

• The world's largest auto insurers now offer usage-based policies, which price premiums based on vehicle usage data collected directly from the car.
• Large home and commercial property insurers are using drones to inspect damaged properties, which can improve workflow efficiency and reduce their reliance on human labor.
• Health and life insurance firms are offering customers fitness trackers to encourage healthy behavior, and discounts for meeting certain goals.
• Home insurers are offering discounts on smart home devices to current customers, and in some cases, free devices to entice new customers.

In full, the report:

• Forecasts the number of Americans who will have tried usage-based auto insurance by 2021.
• Explains why narrowly tailored wearables could be what's next for the health insurance industry.
• Analyzes the market for potential future insurance products on IoT devices.
• Discusses and analyzes the barriers to consumers opting in to policies that collect their data.

To get your copy of this invaluable guide to the IoT, choose one of these options:

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The choice is yours. But however you decide to acquire this report, you’ve given yourself a powerful advantage in your understanding of insurance and the IoT.

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• A letter has been made public that alleges Uber "fraudulently impersonates riders and drivers on competitor platforms, hacks into competitor networks, and conducts unlawful wiretapping."
• The letter was written by a lawyer for a former Uber employee, who claims he was "unlawfully demoted" and later fired by the company.
• The letter includes copious details about a group within Uber that was allegedly set up to spy on competitors and collect their trade secrets.

A security group within Uber hacked into competitors' computer systems, stole data from rivals, and recorded the private conversations of competitors at a hotel, according to a letter made public Friday by the judge overseeing the company's lawsuit with Google-spinoff company Waymo.

The letter was written by a lawyer for Richard Jacobs, Uber's former manager of global intelligence. It was written in May to an internal Uber lawyer who handles employee complaints.

An Uber spokesperson says the company hasn't yet validated all the claims made in the letter, telling us: "While we haven’t substantiated all the claims in this letter—and, importantly, any related to Waymo—our new leadership has made clear that going forward we will compete honestly and fairly, on the strength of our ideas and technology."

Jacobs was fired from Uber in April. In the letter, Jacobs' lawyer charges he was terminated in retaliation by the company because he refused to participate in what he viewed as unethical and illegal activities.

Those activities, which Jacobs' lawyer details in the letter, were allegedly perpetrated by Uber's Threat Operations (ThreatOps) group. That group "frequently engaged in fraud and theft, and employed third-party vendors to obtain unauthorized data or information," Jacobs' lawyer charged.

For example, the letter alleges that between December 14 and 16, 2016, the ThreatOps team infiltrated a WhatsApp group and collected information from it.

"Jacobs reported that infiltrating WhatsApp groups was unlawful and would get Uber kicked out of [redacted]," Jacobs' lawyer said in the letter. "His concerns were ignored."

Uber team allegedly hacked networks, planted bugs

The letter also charges that "Uber worked to unlawfully obtain trade secrets."

It alleges the ThreatOps team:

"1) remotely accessed confidential [redacted] corporate communications and data, 2) impersonated riders and drivers on [redacted] platform to derive key functions of [redacted] rider and driver apps, 3) stole supply data by identifying possible drivers to boost Uber's market position, and 4) acquired codebase which allowed MA to identify code used by [redacted] to understand in greater detail how [redacted] app functioned."

In other words, the letter accuses Uber of hacking into the networks of its ride-sharing competitors, stealing the code that allowed them to track their operations, and stealing other data.

In particular, Uber hacked a taxi company's database that contained information on its drivers and attempted to use that hacked information to recruit those drivers to Uber, Jacobs' lawyer alleged in the letter.

Additionally, Uber planted bugs to spy on people at a hotel on the orders of CEO Travis Kalanick, according to the letter:

"To do this, multiple surveillance teams infiltrated private-event spaces at hotel and conference facilities that the group of [redacted] executives used during their stay. In at least one instance, [CIA-trained] operatives deployed against these targets were able to record and observe private conversations among the executives — including their real-time reactions to a press story that Uber would receive $3.4 billion dollars in funding from the Saudi government. Importantly, these collection tactics were tasked directly by Sullivan on behalf of Uber's CEO, Travis Kalanick. Upon information and belief, these two Uber executives, along with other members of Uber's executive team, received live intelligence updates (including photographs and video) from Gicinto while they were present in the 'War Room.'"

Uber also cultivated spies from within its competitors to feed it information on their activities, Jacobs' lawyer charged.

The team allegedly hid its activities

What's more, Uber's ThreatOps group went to great lengths to cover up its activities, according to the letter.

The group used so-called burner cell phones and communicated via encrypted messaging services such as Wickr, where messages are deleted soon after they're sent, the letter charged. Group members were trained to mark their communications "privileged" under the believe that privileged communications with Uber's lawyers meant that their documents could not be used in legal proceedings, Jacobs' lawyer said in the letter.

The team "implemented a sophisticated strategy to destroy, conceal, cover up, and falsify records or documents with the intent to impede or obstruct government investigations as well as discovery obligations in pending and future litigation," Jacobs' lawyer charged.

The letter came to light as part of the lawsuit Waymo, the autonomous-car subsidiary of Google parent company Alphabet, filed against Uber in February, charging Uber with stealing its trade secrets. Most of the activities detailed in the letter allegedly took place while Travis Kalanick was still CEO of Uber. Kalanick resigned from that position in June following an investigation that revealed a toxic workplace environment at the company.

After the existence of the letter was revealed in court, Uber's new CEO, Dara Khosrowshahi, acknowledged in a tweet he was aware employees were using apps including Wickr and Telegram. He said he banned them soon after he started at the company.

That same day, Uber's new general counsel Tony West told Uber employees:

"My understanding is that this behavior no longer occurs at Uber; that this truly is a remnant of the past. And I have not learned anything in the last couple of days that suggests otherwise. But, to be crystal clear, to the extent anyone is working on any kind of competitive intelligence project that involves the surveillance of individuals, stop it now.

"Let me also add that I’ve not learned of anything regarding the surveillance practices that would be considered illegal. However, as you will hear me say many times, the question for us is not just whether something is legal; we must also ask ourselves whether it’s the right thing to do."

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Scott Audette/Reuters

• Dan Sundheim, the former chief investment officer at Viking Global, is launching a new fund in 2018.
• It's still early days, but hedge fund insiders say the fund launch could be one of the biggest in recent history.

Dan Sundheim, the former chief investment officer at Viking Global Investors, is expected to launch a hedge fund next year. And we keep hearing the fund launch is going to be one of the biggest in recent history. 

It has previously been reported that the fund, a long-short equity fund called D1 Capital, could raise more than $1 billion when it launches next year. But according to multiple people in the hedge fund world that Business Insider spoke with, the fund could raise multiple billions, with one person putting the figure at $4 billion to $5 billion on day one. 

Hedge-fund investors and others familiar with the launch told Business Insider they expect Sundheim to raise multiple billions of dollars, with the lowest estimate $2 billion. The fund is expected to include a significant amount of Sundheim's personal capital, some of the people said.

That range of $2 billion to $5 billion would make it one of the biggest fund launches next year, and comes at a time when most launches struggle to raise more than $1 billion.

To be clear, the fund isn't yet formally being marketed, according to people familiar with the matter. The situation is fluid and could change, said one of the people, asking not to be identified discussing private matters.

Jonathan Gasthalter, a spokesman for Sundheim, declined to comment.

But there's reason to believe the fund could be one of the biggest in recent memory. Sundheim is said to have had a strong track record at Viking, and his new fund is expected to attract money from previous Viking investors. Earlier this year, Viking said it would return about $8 billion in assets to clients.

The start-up has hired Eton Park CFO Tony Fox alongside Michael Lean, the former head of equity research at Hong Kong-based investment group CLSA, HFM Week reported. D1 Capital has also rented out a 32,300 square-foot office at 9 West 57th Street with a 15-year lease, according to a press release.

Other highly anticipated launches for next year include Steve Cohen's Stamford Harbor, which is targeting close to $2 billion, and former Millennium bond chief Michael Gelband's fund. Ex-GLG and Moore manager Greg Coffey is also prepping a fund.

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BI Intelligence

This is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here.

Startups with robo-advisor products are failing to live up to their initial promise.

As solutions proliferate and consumer adoption remains slower than expected, many firms are re-examining and updating their strategies to survive. 

In a new report, BI Intelligence scopes the current market for robo-advisors, providing an updated forecast through 2022. In addition, we explain the different types of robo-advisors emerging, detail how startups and incumbents are working to ensure the success of their products, and outline what will happen to the market over the next 12 months.

Here are some of the key takeaways from the report:

• BI Intelligence forecasts that robo-advisors — investment products that include any element of automation — will manage around $1 trillion by 2020, and around $4.6 trillion by 2022. 
• Startups offering robo-advisors are struggling to acquire AUM due to overcrowding in the global robo-advisory market and lower than expected customer uptake. 
• Incumbents are rolling out their own robo-advisor products, a trend we expect to pick up in the period to 2022. 
• North America remains the leading robo-advisory market, but we expect Asia to catch up and outpace the region in terms of AUM managed by robo-advisors in the period to 2022. 
• There will be a winnowing of the startup robo-advisory market as only a few firms remain stand-alone, while incumbents looking to launch their own products will profit from purchasing the technology of startups that have fallen by the wayside, at low cost. 

 In full, the report:

• Provides a forecast for the volume of assets robo-advisors will manage by 2022.
• Outlines the current robo-advisory landscape.
• Explains how startups with robo-advisor products are evolving their business strategies. 
• Provides an outlook for the future of the robo-advising industry. 

To get the full report, subscribe to an All-Access pass to BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report and more than 250 other expertly researched reports. As an added bonus, you'll also gain access to all future reports and daily newsletters to ensure you stay ahead of the curve and benefit personally and professionally. >> Learn More Now

You can also purchase and download the full report from our research store.

A compromise Republican tax bill released late Friday does not eliminate a $7,500 electric vehicle tax credit as Republicans in the U.S. House of Representatives had previously proposed.

The measure follows the lead of the Senate version approved last month that did not eliminate the credit. Killing the credit could have hurt automakers like General Motors, Volkswagen, Tesla and Nissan.

Consumers under current law are eligible for a $7,500 tax credit to defray the cost of plug-in electric vehicles. The electric vehicle tax credit starts to phase out after a manufacturer sells 200,000 plug-in vehicles. After an automaker hits that point, the $7,500 tax credit is still available for at least three more months before phasing out.

Consumers are currently allowed to take the credit on vehicles until the manufacturer hits 200,000 plug-in vehicles sold. Electric vehicles have expensive batteries that make them pricier than gasoline-powered vehicles.

The Electric Drive Transportation Association said in a statement late Friday it was pleased the credit would remain in law. “The credit supports innovation and job creation while helping drivers access advanced vehicle technology,” the group said.

More than 50 automakers and other companies and groups released a letter earlier this week urging Congress to retain the credit, including Ford, BMW AG, GM, and Uber.

Former President Barack Obama repeatedly proposed hiking the tax credit for electric vehicles to $10,000 and converting it to a point-of-sale rebate, but Congress did not approve the measure.

Automakers face mandates from California and a dozen other states to produce a rising number of zero-emission vehicles and have said the credits are essential to meeting requirements.

Disney's plans to acquire most of the assets of 21st Century Fox could reshape Hollywood. Assuming the $52.4 billion deal goes through, the Mouse House will get the rights to the "Avatar" movies, full control over movies based on Marvel's X-men characters, and the rights to distribute the original "Star Wars" movie. As we can see in this chart from Statista, Disney was already the top movie studio; adding on Fox's assets should cement its lead.

But the move is about more than movies. The deal includes Fox's 30% stake in Hulu, which would make Disney the majority owner of the streaming service and put it in a good position to compete with Netflix.

Mike Nudelman/Business Insider

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Procter & Gamble said it appointed Nelson Peltz to its board despite the activist investor narrowly losing a months-long proxy fight, the biggest ever involving a U.S. company.

The company’s shares were up 1% in after-market trading on Friday.

Immediately after its annual meeting in mid-October, P&G said it beat Peltz by a slim margin, but a preliminary tally by an independent election inspector, released a month later, showed otherwise.

“Because the election results were so close, and because a large number of shareholders voted for Nelson Peltz to be a director, the board has engaged in numerous discussions with Mr. Peltz regarding a board seat,” P&G said on Friday.

The consumer goods conglomerate said it increased its board size by 2 to 13--to accommodate Peltz and appoint a new director in Joseph Jimenez, CEO of drugmaker Novartis.

P&G said it had recounted nearly two billion votes, many of which were paper ballots.

The recount showed that shareholders elected all eleven P&G nominees, including Ernesto Zedillo, for whom the votes cast were extremely close to those for Peltz.

Following recent discussions, Peltz and P&G agreed that the company would not be predisposed to take on excessive debt, reduce R&D spending, advocate for a break-up of the company or move the company out of its headquarters in Cincinnati – demands Peltz had made during the proxy battle.

“I look forward to bringing fresh perspectives to the boardroom, and working collaboratively with (CEO) David and the rest of the board to drive sustainable long-term shareholder value at P&G,” Peltz said in an email.

Peltz’s appointment is the latest twist in a contest that saw the two sides collectively spend more than an estimated $100 million on mailings, phone calls and advertisements to woo investors.

Peltz’s appointment is effective March 1 and the company also committed to re-nominate the investor as part of its board slate for next year’s annual meeting, P&G said.

The company also said it would link executive compensation to its sales and stock performance.

BI Intelligence

This is a preview of a research report from BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service. To learn more about BI Intelligence, click here.

To keep pace with the ongoing shift toward e- and m-commerce, retailers are turning to chat apps, where smartphone users spend considerable time each day.

One way they’ve been accessing consumers on these platforms is through chatbots, or software programs that use business-to-consumer (B2C) text-based messaging as an interface through which customers can communicate with merchants in a question-and-answer format. 

For merchants, these offerings are valuable because sales increase as customers communicate with and shop from their brand on more channels. But there’s considerable friction — in chat apps, payments offerings are limited, which means users who might be browsing in a messaging app will still be redirected to another app or the mobile web to complete a purchase. 

This is creating an opportunity for payments processors and card networks, which are beginning to partner with merchants to capture potential volume from chat apps. And as the hype increases, other payments firms, like remittance providers and banks are also entering the game, in the hopes of increasing user engagement or attracting new types of clients.

There’s a long road ahead: We’re just at the beginning of what’s likely to be a long adoption cycle, with payments firms only starting to dip their toes into the space. But improvements in the ecosystem, combined with rising consumer appetite for these services and increasing trust, will eventually lead to moderate gains in usage that open up a massive volume opportunity for Western firms.

BI Intelligence, Business Insider's premium research service, has put together a detailed report on chatbots' role in the payments ecosystem.

Here are some key takeaways from the report:

• Chat apps are the next frontier for digital commerce, but without payments functionality, the opportunity is extremely limited. Customers can — and do — ask for support, take advantage of deals, and browse many stores within chat apps. But when it comes time to pay, users have to switch to another app or the mobile web — a turnoff that could hinder adoption and lower conversion rates.
• Most payments firms are teaming up with retailers, often those they already count as clients, to enable customers to make payments using their mobile wallets or processing features within chat apps. That’s allowing retailers to get to the space faster while opening a revenue opportunity for payments players. Others are taking less direct approaches, working to increase consumer engagement in a way that promotes more spending offline.
• We’re at the beginning of an adoption curve, so digital payments providers shouldn’t expect massive success quickly, but in the long run, it’s likely to be a large market. As firms work to grow consumer awareness and improve the experience, the technology will eventually become mainstream, which makes getting in early and becoming established worthwhile. 

In full, the report:

• Explains why the chat app is the next frontier for commerce, and why payments functionality is a linchpin of that success.
• Details different types of chat app payments and their potential use cases.
• Evaluates the hurdles that could prevent consumers from using chatbot payments.
• Suggests ways firms can overcome these hurdles and begin seeing adoption.
• Sizes the potential long-run market for chatbot payments in the West.

Interested in getting the full report? Here are two ways to access it:

1. Subscribe to an ALL-ACCESS Membership with BI Intelligence and gain immediate access to this report AND more than 250 other expertly researched deep-dive reports, subscriptions to all of our daily newsletters, and much more. >> Learn More Now
2. Purchase and download the report from our research store. >> Purchase & Download Now