Because the new model for interaction is conversation, bots can easily be launched from open protocols like SMS or email. I don’t need to find Amy in the app store, make space for it on my smartphone homescreen, or create a username and password. I give it access to my Google account, CC it on my email, and it goes to work from there. "That’s one of the big advantages I see between bots and apps," says Ben Brown, from the smart bot startup Howdy. "Let’s say I buy a plane ticket. The flight gets delayed and I get an SMS alert. But now I can reply to that message and ask questions? No downloading or discovery issues. No logins or passwords. I chat with the airline’s bot, and when I don’t need it anymore, it’s gone."

Microsoft and Facebook are bullish on bots

The potential for easy adoption explains why companies that failed to capture the smartphone market, like Facebook and Microsoft, are so bullish on bots. They see these helpers as a herd of tiny Trojan horses that could help it connect with consumers. At its annual developer conference last month, Microsoft laid out an ambitious vision for a future populated by bots that will book a hotel room or take orders for pizza delivery. It introduced tools that it hopes will make it easier for any developer or small business owner to build a bot. And it opened up widely used software platforms like Skype and Cortana so that developers can connect their bots to them. Next week, Facebook is expected to debut a bot store that will connect with its Messenger service, further accelerating the development of this ecosystem.

"If Microsoft doesn’t own the consumer front end, the way to reach them is to power all the businesses," says Shane Mac, CEO of another smart bot startup, Assist. "It’s still a consumer play, because if the local dry cleaner is using Microsoft’s bot engine, Microsoft is getting all that data to make the consumer experience better across everything they own."

Amazon, whose smartphone attempts also flopped, has its most exciting new business in the Echo, which features a smart assistant named Alexa you can control with your voice. Like Cortana and Siri, Alexa is the command and control bot, a generalized AI that can handle a variety of different tasks. But it can also connect you to various smaller bots with a much more limited and focused repertoire: Alexa, call me an Uber. Alexa, play me this song on Spotify.