Slack and the Decline of Bots

Remember when bots were the new apps? Now it’s the opposite.

Will Oremus

Oct 22, 2019·4 min read

A close up of a phone display with various messaging and social media app icons, featuring the Slack app icon in the center. — Photo: Chesnot/Getty

“Bots are the new apps,” Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella said at the company’s annual developer conference in 2016. His company had just updated Cortana, its virtual assistant, and built a system for developers to build bots of their own.