There’s an entire ecosystem, akin to the App Store in its scale, to be built. When you can quickly and easily interact with Dominos, United Airlines and Capital One on Messenger, and will you ever use their bloated native apps again? The current bot landscape feels a lot like the web in 1995, or mobile apps in 2008.
Source: Facebook’s Messenger Bot Store could be the most important launch since the App Store | TechCrunch
I’ve been writing for a while now about how AI is the future of human-to-technical interaction.
This article is talking about texting to messaging apps, and having AI on the other end doing your bidding.
It’s true that this will be the first step, but what’s coming right after is telling Siri or whoever what you want, and having her get it for you.
The reason it makes the most sense is because it’s the most natural. Texting will still happen because people can’t always speak audibly. But the idea is the same.
Find me a place to eat. Tell me who in this room I should talk to. See if there are any dating matches for me within a mile. Order me my favorite pizza. Replenish my razors.
These are powerful, and they’re tied deeply to people’s real lives.
What the article above showed me, though, that I hadn’t though of before, is how this model obsoletes mobile applications.
Fascinating.
It reminds me of Apple Pay compared to the Uber model. Apple Pay is a major improvement over cash and credit cards. But it’s behind when compared to not doing anything (the Uber model).
And mobile apps are way better than using the phone, or some dumb website. But they’re primitive compared to speaking or texting.
/popcorn
Notes
- If you want to see what the entire picture looks like, here’s the future of IoT and tech interaction for humans.