Ever since Facebook announced the new beta Facebook Messenger platform that allows brands and services to build bots right into Messenger allowing contextual access to services [read: basically a nifty new monetization engine for Facebook], we have seen a sudden explosion in content brands, lifestyle products and utility services [yup, I count Uber a utility service!] getting their bot-groove on!
Here's a full list of bots built for Messenger so far [as full as it can get considering a new bot is probably gonna be launched by the time you finish reading this] - https://botlist.co/
But amidst all the buzz, I am still not clear how the 'bot movement' is a step towards a more simplified connected future for mankind. A bot for each app on your phone is now 'a lot of bots' in place of 'a lot of apps'. If we reach a point where we start blocking/uninstalling bots from our phones/FB accounts 'cause of bot overload, are we better off than our app-overload lives of today?
I contend: Bots won't survive. At least not in the way that's being imagined today - of standalone bots that are accessed one-on-one. The future is not bots, the future is layers.
On second thought, a plural description of 'layer' is missing the point. The future is - a layer.
A single layer that all apps/sites/bots feed data information into is both my prediction of what the future looks like and a future worth attempting to create.
Does one single layer as our only interface with the digital universe sound very big brother-ish? Probably.
Image Credit: designtaxi.com