| > Simple/well understood things like "call an Uber" I think will be pretty DOA if you try to shoehorn a chatbot into the middle - users will prefer the actual UI over it any day of the week. I completely disagree when it comes to texting (voice is dif.). I have no interest in waiting for my uber app to load, get me a quote and than order me a ride... I would much rather use a chatbot to look up quick and easy things. If it's a one off piece of information that I can ask in 1-2 queries/interactions with a bot...I would much rather that over opening an app. Especially, if I can look something up quickly without leaving the current UI i'm using. I also think you are ignoring all the many use cases that are made possible that were never before possible (i.e. the ability for chatbots to augment humans to achieve access at scale), and the many business models that can shave off 20-30% of their labor costs with well executed chat bots. I also think it's important to think about the bots calling other bots use case, which might become even more important. Just because you can't envision a human preferring a bot over an app with simple/well understood things...doesn't mean there wont be many use cases where a current bot you are using talks to other bots on your behalf, so the UI choice is never made by you.
Finally, and most importantly, if chat bots start replacing parts of discovery, search and research, it will become crucially important to make sure your brands are found and used by bots and people over your competitors brands and bots. Think of doing SEO in 2002. If you got it right, you banked tens of millions with minimal effort. I can't predict the future, but viewing chat bots as a UI alternative limits its actual scope. |