Microsoft is sticking with bots at Build

Microsoft chief executive Satya Nadella opens the US technology titan's annual Build Conference in Seattle on May 10, 2017. Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella declared that "bots are the new apps" at the Microsoft Build developer conference in March 2016. Little over a year later, at the latest annual Build taking place this week in Seattle, Microsoft renewed its commitment to bots, leveraging advances in artificial intelligence and built around Nadella's vision of conversation as a platform. Chat bots are meant to model human conversation, some for social reasons, others for business and productivity purposes. Microsoft's Nadella rallies coders to prevent dystopian future Microsoft announced an expanded set of developer tools for the Bot Framework that was unveiled last year, announcing channels at Build that will let developers make use of bots through the Cortana personal assistant, Bing search engine and Skype for Business.