Bot in the Bunch: Facilitating Group Chat Discussion by Improving Efficiency and Participation with a Chatbot

Although group chat discussions are prevalent in daily life, they have a number of limitations. When discussing in a group chat, reaching a consensus often takes time, members contribute unevenly to the discussion, and messages are unorganized. Hence, we aimed to explore the feasibility of a facilitator chatbot agent to improve group chat discussions. We conducted a needfinding survey to identify key features for a facilitator chatbot. We then implemented GroupfeedBot, a chatbot agent that could facilitate group discussions by managing the discussion time, encouraging members to participate evenly, and organizing members' opinions. To evaluate GroupfeedBot, we performed preliminary user studies that varied for diverse tasks and different group sizes. We found that the group with GroupfeedBot appeared to exhibit more diversity in opinions even though there were no differences in output quality and message quantity. On the other hand, GroupfeedBot promoted members' even participation and effective communication for the medium-sized group.