Microsoft Bot Framework is a comprehensive offering to build and deploy high quality bots for your users to enjoy in their favorite conversation experiences. Developers writing bots all face the same problems: bots require basic I/O; they must have language and dialog skills; they must be performant, responsive and scalable; and they must connect to users – ideally in any conversation experience and language the user chooses. Bot Framework provides just what you need to build, connect, manage and publish intelligent bots that interact naturally wherever your users are talking – from text/sms to Skype, Slack, Facebook Messenger, Kik, Office 365 mail and other popular services.

Bots (or conversation agents) are rapidly becoming an integral part of one’s digital experience – they are as vital a way for users to interact with a service or application as is a web site or a mobile experience. Developers writing bots all face the same problems: bots require basic I/O; they must have language and dialog skills; and they must connect to users – preferably in any conversation experience and language the user chooses. The Bot Framework provides tools to easily solve these problems and more for developers e.g., automatic translation to more than 30 languages, user and conversation state management, debugging tools, an embeddable web chat control and a way for users to discover, try, and add bots to the conversation experiences they love.

The Bot Framework consists of a number of components including the Bot Builder SDK, Developer Portal and the Bot Directory.