Chatbot support will soon be coming to the Samsung Galaxy S9’s default Messages app. So far this seems to only support AT&T devices, but it is very likely to be rolled out to more carriers and devices soon. This is a feature of RCS, which is the same technology behind Google’s upcoming Chat service. We have obtained screenshots of the feature from the SamCentral Discord Server and XDA Recognized Contributor Venom0642.
Discord member KenC first noticed this last week when he updated to a leaked version of Android 8.0 with the May Security patch. What he found was that the chatbots allow you to communicate with a company to help with shopping, planning trips, receiving the news, checking into flights, and more. You can do all of this without the need for a separate app. AT&T seemed to have released this for some Samsung devices in March, but they have added more chatbots. It doesn’t seem like any other carriers support this yet.
So far, this supports 1-800-Flowers Assistant, 385Scores, CNN, HereWeGo Chat, JustAnswers 24-7 Experts, SkyScanner, SnapTravel, Stye Inspire, and Walgreens. These all allow you to communicate with the companies for information or questions. All of these accounts are verified too so you don’t need to worry about scammers when communicating with Chatbots.
Venom0642 was able to install the latest leaked build of Android 8.0 with the May security patch and gain access to Chatbots. He was able to talk to the CNN Chatbot and get us some screenshots below. The CNN bot allows you to request daily news on certain topics and also get messages with breaking news.
All of this seems like a great addition to RCS and we are excited to see what happens in the future. With Google’s announcement of Chat, this feature could be rolling out to Google Messages soon also, though we won’t know until that actually happens.