When the chatbot-building company ChatFuel held a global competition for chatbot development recently, Halifax's Janet Chiang was delighted that her company, GoSky AI Digital Marketing, placed fourth. 

Taiwan-based GoSky is a global digital marketing and ad optimization company that builds chatbots, and has offices all over the world. Chiang, a graduate of the Sobey School of Business at St. Mary’s University is the lone representative at GoSky’s Halifax office.

Chiang, who is also from Taiwan, came to Canada during high school as a part of the Nova Scotia International Student Program.

“I came here alone at 16 years old and I spoke no English,” said Chiang in an interview. That was eight years ago. Today, she is the business development manager for GoSky. 

Over the past six months, GoSky has experienced substantial growth. In December, it placed fourth in ChatFuel's global chatbot-building competition. Chatfuel, a world leader in chatbot design, accepted over 800 submissions worldwide.

“Our thought was to give it a try and, surprisingly, we got in and made it to the final round,” said Chiang. “After the competition, everything is growing so fast and we’re just trying to catch up.”

GoSky works with clients in 28 different countries across multiple industries. It services nearly 130 accounts by managing online marketing, and building chatbots for around 40 of those customers.

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Chatbots are artificial intelligence systems or “bots” that users can interact with via text conversation. Companies usually use them to advertise with or gain feedback from consumers. You may have already seen this technology with companies like Facebook or Dominos Pizza.

The idea behind chatbots is to simulate informative and clear dialogue with users. But designing natural conversation flow is tough, especially when English is not your native language.

“We’ve worked in languages that I don’t even understand, which I find fascinating,” said Chiang.  “But really it’s the logic behind it.”

“It’s a lot of coding and adjusting back-end settings,” added Fash Chang the company's marketing director. He was kind enough to speak with Entrevestor from Taiwan at 5 a.m his time. When GoSky started in 2013, it was a one-man show run by Chang, in Taiwan. He, and another employee do all the coding and bot-building.

In the beginning, GoSky only offered digital marketing services for its customers, helping them increase their online traffic. 

“It was that simple to start with, but then one day we were looking at other things and we found chatbots,” said Chiang. “And we got some bona fide results from combining the two tools.”

Moving forward in 2018, GoSky plans on designing a platform for its customers to create their own chatbots.

“Six months ago, I didn’t even see that we’d be where we are today so it’s hard to say where we will be in the future,” said Chiang.  “We’re trying to think of one simple solution for everyone.”