Windows Live Agents
Windows Live Agents are chatterbot agents for Windows Live Messenger that is part of Microsoft's Windows Live services. They provide users the ability to interact with the agents through Windows Live Messenger to get more information about specific topics. Windows Live Agents are used to entertain, encourage engagement with products or services, provide a new advertising opportunity for brand advertisers, and drive search and information retrieval. Although support and development of Windows Live Agents has been discontinued as of June 30, 2009, existing Windows Live Agents can still be found in Windows Live Gallery. Agents. Several  agents that were available include: History. In October 2006, Microsoft acquired privately owned Colloquis Inc., a provider of conversational online business solutions that feature natural language-processing technology. Microsoft plans to offer services based on Colloquis technology to businesses with online operations, as well as incorporating the technology into its own products, including Windows Live Agents and Microsoft's Customer Care Framework (CCF). On November 25, 2008, Microsoft released Windows Live Agents 5.1 SDK for developers to build their Windows Live Agents for Windows Live Messenger. However, they also announced that this will be the last version of the Windows  Live Agents SDK. Support for Windows Live Agents has been discontinued on June 30, 2009. The Windows Live Agents Partner Hosting Portal also stopped accepting any new Agents hosting requests as of this date. It is currently unknown however whether Windows Live Messenger will also cease support for Windows Live Agents in future versions. In March 2016, a similar concept of "Bots" was announced for Windows Live Messenger successor program Skype.