Microsoft embraces conversation as new user interface

Microsoft, the U.S. multinational technology company, used on Wednesday the company's annual gathering for developers to unveil its grand plan of making conversation a new way to interact with computers with intelligence bots at the heart.

At the developers conference held in San Fransicso's Moscone Center, Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella described his ideas about "conversation as a platform", referring to conversation between humans and bots, or artificial intelligence agents that can understand natural language.

"We think this can have as profound an impact as the previous platform shifts have had," Nadella said in his keynote speech. He made it clear that bots would become the next big way to interact with computers following mouse, keyboard and touch screen.

Explaining that "human language is the new UI (user interface)", he said digital assistants, like Cortana developed by Microsoft, would be "always with you across all your devices," while bots going in-between as the new applications.

"We want to build intelligence that augments human abilities," he said. "It's not going to be about man versus machine, it's going to be about man with machines."

During the event, Microsoft demonstrated how users of its instant messaging service Skype could get things done by making conversations, in which Cortana acts as a broker for bots.

Microsoft also released a set of tools which allow developers to build their own bots.

"We want every developer to be able to build bots as the new applications for every business and every service," Nadella said. "We want all developers to be able to infuse intelligence into their applications."

Microsoft is not the only company working on digital assistant and bots. Its digital assistant rivals include Amazon's Alexa and Apple's Siri. Enditem