Susan Hura | Source | Director, Conversation Design Services at Interactions, LLC

I'm going to make predictions in sort of two directions, although I think they're really very connected. The one thing that I think is going to take off is conversations that occur in more than one modality. So conversations that can move seamlessly from voice to chat, maybe back to voice, without losing the thread of what you were talking about. The other thing is truly some of the advanced dialogue technologies that we've got so that we can enable even more flexibility in these automated conversations.

Technology is fine on its own, but unless you package it up correctly, it won’t matter to consumers. As I like to say: technology gives you ingredients, but design gives you dinner. We need to unify powerful technology with a strong understanding of the people who use it to deliver exceptional experiences—and that’s what Interactions is all about.

When an automated conversation goes wrong, it can feel like the app is being rude or like we’re not valued as people (or customers). The rules of conversation are less about language and more about the implicit promises we make to one another when we enter into a conversation. Every conversation is built on cooperation, an unwritten contract about how we’ll work together to solve a problem using language. When we enter into a conversation, we accept responsibility for keeping the interaction on track and expect the same of our partner, whether they’re human or automated.