Mega Facebook F8 event may focus on chatbots, 'Live' video

As the world waits for the social media giant Facebook to roll out its two-day annual developer conference F8 in San Francisco, California, on Tuesday, the focus this year may be on chatbots, "Live" video streaming, virtual reality (VR) and artificial intelligence (AI) phenomenon.

Although Facebook has been tightlipped on what the developers in attendance are going to finally witness, it is expected that chatbots are going to take the centrestage.

Oculus VR, AI and Live video are also set to be discussed at length and how Facebook's army of developer partners can benefit from them, tech website Mashable reported on Tuesday.

Facebook may announce that it is bringing chatbots to its Messenger service during the event at Fort Mason Centre. This will allow businesses and developers to make their services available inside of Messenger via a Chat SDK, the report added.

The social network has been investing heavily into video and its live-streaming product is becoming increasingly important.

While new developer tie-ins seem unlikely given the relative youth of the platform, it is possible that Facebook will use F8 to extol the virtues of "Live".

Facebook has also been steadily ramping up its investment in AI and it's likely the social network will highlight some of these efforts.

While it is expected that Facebook will save any major gaming announcements for another conference titled E3 to be held later this year, the company will certainly use F8 as opportunity to sell developers on Oculus and more specifically on 360-degree videos which Facebook introduced last year, the report added.

The two-day event has been used in the past to announce new products, tools, interactive demos to help developers learn about new integrations, open source technologies and the latest immersive experiences.

This year's event features more than 40 sessions along with product announcements, interactive demos and the opportunity to get one-on-one help from the Facebook team.