Dive Brief:

• Shopify acquired Kit CRM, the virtual marketing assistant, according to Venture Beat, giving it an immediate entry into the currently hot marketing chatbot space.
• Facebook emphasized chatbots for marketing on its Messenger app at this week’s F8 conference, and Shopify recently announced it is creating commerce bots for Messenger.
• "The acquisition of Kit, along with Shopify’s integration with the new Facebook Messenger Platform ... further supports our focus on helping merchants embrace conversational commerce," Shopify CMO Craig Miller told Venture Beat.

Dive Insight:

"We believe messaging apps are the gateway to the Internet on mobile, and conversational commerce represents a huge opportunity for Shopify," Miller said. In addition to the Kit deal fitting well with Shopify's Messenger strategy, he said it also serves to propel Shopify's overall goals.

"The Kit team has been focusing on the intersection of commerce and messaging since their inception," he said. "Their vision of the future is squarely aligned with ours. This acquisition accelerates our product roadmap and also brings top talent to Shopify."

According to research from App Annie, messaging apps are the most used type of app in the U.K., Germany, Japan, and South Korea. In China, 91% of internet users use messaging apps. EMarketer predicts that 49% of U.S. mobile phone users will use mobile messaging apps by the end of 2016.

In other marketing bot news, last week messaging platform Kik launched Kik Bot Shop, a chatbot store that allows people to download bots that provide a direct connection with brands.