Jessica McElroy

No longer do you need to convince users to “download and install” an app — they can just invite a bot to a conversation and interact with it [eventually] like they would a person. Zero barriers to adoption, with minimal risk to the user (i.e. malware, etc).

Meanwhile, all of this data is also available to clever developers to build interesting and more personal agents and bots. And since each interaction and engagement is tracked, the longer the conversation thread persists, the easier it will be to offer more responsive heuristic approaches that anticipate the user’s specific needs. That is, the more conversational agents will appear to be getting to know you!

…t of apps that shouldn’t exist as stand-alone apps, and that are wallowing in obscurity or disuse. By reducing the cost and friction of trying out new services, the conversational commerce paradigm promotes an entirely new era of lightweight experimentation. Over time, service builders can focus more on the apparent value that they can deliver through the familiar conversational channel, and can finally dispense with requiring users to learn their app’s needlessly bespoke interface.