Over the years, Skype has become synonymous with video calling, but that’s had the effect of pigeonholing the chat app. In fact, Apple recently started selling Office 365 as an add-on during the checkout process for the iPad Pro, relying on desk workers’ familiarity with Office to position its tablet as a PC replacement. But in that instance, a late entry hadn’t hurt the company too much, thanks to the ubiquity of that product. Microsoft was also slow to embrace cross-platform computing, only bringing Microsoft Office to the iPad in 2014. The new Messenger made it possible for users to send money to their friends, buy items from stores, interact with customer service reps, and more. After splitting off Messenger from the flagship app in 2014, the social network revealed its grand plans to open Messenger up into a platform. The notion of taking action via chat apps also took center stage at Facebook’s F8 conference last year. Then, the search giant touted how Google Now-a layer within Android phones that surfaced relevant information, such as commuting times or boarding passes, at just the right moment-was learning more context in order to perform more robust actions, like pulling up showtimes when a movie is referenced or making reservations on OpenTable when talking about a restaurant. If any of this sounds familiar, it’s because the whole concept of smarter AI helping humans get things done was a major theme of last year’s Google I/O developer conference. Some examples of what these Skype bots will be able to do include ordering a cab, booking a hotel room, and “anything that you may want to do that you’ve done historically with applications and websites,” said Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella.
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