This policy brief features the key findings of the horizon scanning study Nr. 3 (in German: http://www.tab-beim-bundestag.de/de/untersuchungen/uV005.html) It gives an overview of the current state of the art of social bots (capabilities of the applied algorithms), fields of application and users, propagation as well as actual and presumed risks. Moreover, the current state of knowledge regarding the actual extent of using social bots and their impact is presented. The study focused on the issue of potential dangers of social bots resulting from a possible manipulation of political discussions and tendencies in social networks or from the influence of social bots on people’s buying behaviour.