A tech firm that builds chatbots for big brands like Macy's and Alaska Airlines is acquiring a bot startup to corner the messaging market

Joshua March, CEO of Conversocial, said such chatbots have failed because they can't respond to both quick and detailed queries from customers.

"Messaging has this huge opportunity to combine bots and humans, which we think will allow businesses to start implementing automation in a meaningful way that they've struggled with over the past decade," he said. Assist's 15 employees will join Conversocial, including CEO Shane Mac, who will become Conversocial's chief automation officer. March declined to disclose the price of the acquisition. Conversocial has raised $25 million in venture capital funding.Facebook is putting more emphasis on messaging, which March sees as an opportunity with the acquisition. Conversocial was among the first tech companies to get access to Facebook-owned WhatsApp for chatbots.

Mark Zuckerberg recently unveiled in a lengthy blog post that Facebook plans to shift away from public posts to private ephemeral communication in messaging apps."The rise and bigger focus on encryption and ensuring that companies can take their customers' information will drive a lot more business engagement through messaging — it's one of the things that's been holding [brands] back," March said.

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