Moovit’s new Facebook chatbot for transport proves v0 is not going to be good

After the announcement that Facebook and others were taking chatbots increasingly seriously, it was only a matter of time before other companies tried to find their place among the chatter.

It’s super early days, but Moovit’s new transport bot is among the first to be directly integrated with Facebook Messenger, using the API to “support users’ trip planning questions and requests and provide suggested routes for journeys on public transport.”

F**k it, we’ll do it live!

Our biggest ever edition of TNW Conference is fast approaching! Join 10,000 tech leaders this May in Amsterdam.

Proving just how ahead of its time this chatbot is, many people won’t even have access to the barcode scan function yet.

Fortunately, you can follow the short link or search ‘Moovit’ to get going. Only trouble is, the bot’s still pretty dumb.

No, not that Museum of Natural History! That’s in Oxford.

No, I don’t want directions to London! The Museum of Natural History IN LONDON.

We asked Moovit for more detail on what’s going on behind the scenes here and were assured that landmarks are a “work in progress.” Searching for a place name, like London Bridge, brought up three useable results.

On an existing app though — I use CityMapper — this would have taken seconds and you can get almost outrageously comprehensive answers.

So until your chatbot is as good as that, you’ll have difficulty tempting me away, polite or not!