The O’Reilly Bots Podcast: An optimistic look at the future of bots.

In this episode of the O’Reilly Bots Podcast, Pete Skomoroch and I speak with Ben Brown, co-founder and CEO of Howdy.ai, the bot toolmaker behind the Botkit framework. Brown also runs the Talkabot conference, which was held in Austin this past September.

Discussion points:

• The types of bots that people are building and experimenting with on Botkit


• How the evolution of bots compares to the evolution of mobile apps


• The strikingly collegial bots community: Brown cites the contributions that IBM and Microsoft have made to Botkit


• Praise for new types of bots, including notification bots (such as Poncho), what Brown calls “unfurling content” bots (such as Purple), and bots that open channels to discussions with humans


• Thington, an Internet of Things platform that functions like a chatroom for micro-bots connected to different home devices

Other links:

• The Harvard Business Review bot, which sends out advice articles


• Bloomberg article on Slack’s partnership with IBM to build chatbots


• IBM’s “World of Watson” event, held in October