Oh what a year for the bots! While many feared the singularity (Facebook’s F8 that kicked the craze truly off in April, happened more or less exactly 5 years after Skynet became self-aware…), we have essentially witnessed the birth of a new UI paradigm that will take some years to get established, but will not go away. Controlling machines with human language can be considered the “last frontier” for man-machine interfaces. And Amara’s Law applies here again like it has so many times before with emerging technology:

We tend to overestimate the effect of a technology in the short run and underestimate the effect in the long run

Have a look at the industry movements as they relate to chatbots this year:



Without a doubt, 2017 will show exciting first implementations that not only meet expectations (that have been missed so much this year), but pave the way for slower adopters that will not want to miss out once they, too, realize the potential of Conversational User Interfaces (CUI). Me, personally, I can’t wait!