The era of conversational user interface

From punch cards to arcane keystrokes to graphical user interfaces, the evolution of computing is partly a story of an evolution in how we interact with them. Today, a new computer interaction paradigm is rapidly gaining ground: chatting in natural language. Chatbots--software applications that engage in natural language dialogues with users and perform tasks on their behalf--are proliferating on consumer messaging platforms such as Facebook Messenger and WeChat platform as a means for consumers to interact with brands. With so much attention focused on consumer chatbots, though, it is easy to miss a trend that will further amplify their impact: companies adopting chatbots for internal enterprise and business-to-business applications. These applications are bringing greater productivity and efficiency to a wide range of enterprise activities.