Chatbots will eventually replace mobile apps. Maybe in 2020!

Chatbots replacing Mobile apps isn’t a new affair. The tech industry has always undergone critical transformations and this happens to be one of them.

Trends began when browser replaced the desktop Operating Systems as the new platform. Just as websites replaced client-server applications then, messaging bots will replace mobile apps now.

According to Gartner’s report, By 2020, 85% of customer interactions will be managed without a human. Chatbots escalation began in early 2016; in less than 6 months, major tech giants either launched Bot development platform, created their own Chatbot or both.

Chatbots are essentially automation of human interaction with businesses. Chatbots can complement and form alternate sales channel but can’t replace some of the popular apps such as e-commerce platforms (Amazon, Alibaba, and Flipkart) and social media platforms (Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp)

Because chatting is more natural to human than working on a static app. Chatbots score better in terms of user experience.


Some prominent reasons why chatbot are the new apps –

App fatigue and expensive app development

in March 2015, Gartner published a report, that showed App usage is going to plateau. As many smartphone users were becoming exhausted and didn’t want to increase their current usage levels. It’s not that people don’t want to use Apps anymore, there’s just too many. Also, installing many apps causes memory issues.

Unified Interface

In fact, all mobile apps and websites are just a collection of information. All this can be packaged into a single messaging app where a chatbot can offer all the services. Merging the services such as buying movie tickets, groceries or booking a hotel or flight in a single messaging app is much convenient rather than downloading multiple apps taking up your precious storage. Chatbots can help in reducing this multiple downloads.

Customer support is much easier with chatbots

With the innovative, exceptional and highly functional features of messaging chatbots, customer support mobile apps seem to be moving towards a farewell. Chatbots can track customer’s responses. Whether it’s simple workflow or critical scenarios, chatbots can ensure successful mapping of these operations onto the framework.

Technical superiority using AI, NLP and ML

Advancement in Natural Language processing or in some cases Artificial Intelligence has made chatbots smarter and more expandable. Using Machine Learning bots can constantly learn from user’s behavior and offer much more personalized responses. Compared to the first conversation, you will observe better and intelligent response in the 100th conversation. Thus incorporation of such cognitive computing technologies opens up many uses for chatbots.

Faster Development

Customers as well as Developers both prefer Chatbots. Building bots on any messaging platforms are relatively simple than developing an iOS or Android Apps. With the increase in bot development platforms, it has become even easier to deploy on multiple platforms at once. Chatbots definitely offer various advantages in terms of overall user experience and development but the developers must take caution while developing the interface and choosing the platforms.

Natural human-like feel

At an elementary level, our lives are very much centered around communication with people or businesses to fulfill goals. Our preference for direct and simple communication is signified by the accelerated rise in usage of messaging apps and platforms such as WeChat, WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, etc. In this scattered place, conversational Chatbots provide much needed and simplified way of handling tasks via a natural and human-like approach of interaction.

Faster performance than Mobile Apps

Chatbots aren’t that smart yet that they can train themselves. Times are not far when people will talk to businesses through chatbots just as good as or better than using the website or mobile apps. Why may people prefer Chatbots over Mobile apps? Two reasons are –

  • To load a website, it at least takes few seconds or minutes. But Chatbots load instantaneously. As long as things are comparative, people will choose that saves time and loads faster. Here Bots may win the race.
  • Mobile apps need to be downloaded and use your storage space. Chatbots are not needed to be downloaded. You just need to message them in a messaging app and you can make them do things you require.

Thus it can be inferred from the reasons that chatbots will eventually replace mobile applications. Every website and mobile apps are designed with a visual interface like buttons, text, images, etc. But you constantly have to learn new visual interfaces in order to use your favorite products. Imagine a scenario when you are planning a trip and you will go to travel website to search for relevant hotels and restaurants. Instead of this, if you have a bot who does all this, you just need to message your preferences and the chatbot will give search results accordingly. Chatbots make the search simpler and convenient.

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A version of this post was published originally on Why can chatbots replace Mobile Apps immediately?