The chatbot bubble has officially burst

Allo did all the things you'd expect from a new messaging app: It incorporated richer fonts and multimedia tools, much like competitors iMessage or WhatsApp. But its coup de grâce against its competition was supposed to be The Power of Google Itself, with Search manifesting itself within the app as an omnipresent third wheel that was always listening, always ready to pipe up at moment's notice to help find a restaurant and book reservations. That third wheel was powered by the Google Assistant, which Rebecca Michael, then Google's head of marketing of messaging products, described as "an ongoing dialog between you and Google that helps you get things done in your world" as she debuted Allo onstage in 2016. What did that mean in a practical sense? More or less, I'd say "let's go out to dinner," and suddenly Allo would prompt me with a pop-up button: "DID SOMEONE SAY ITALIAN FOOD!?!?!?" I suspected Allo might not be long for this world, and two years later, the experiment is over.