Andreas Hepp is Professor for Media and Communications at the ZeMKI (Centre for Media, Communication and Information Research), University of Bremen, Germany. In the paper[^paper] we mentioned in the introduction to this chapter, he distinguishes three kinds of communicative bots: artificial companions, social bots and work bots. For Hepp, communicative bots are characterised through a double embodiment: a communicative embodiment, referring to the bots' human-like representation, and an infrastructural embodiment, referring to the bots being embedded in the materiality of the infrastructure on which they are active. Thinking about the bots in terms of embodiment helps situate them in relation to digital communication infrastructures and their user base.
[^paper]: Hepp, Andreas. "Artificial companions, social bots and work bots: communicative robots as research objects of media and communication studies"
