Want to have a group trivia contest on Skype? Microsoft announced updates to the bot functionality in Skype on Friday that let digital quizmasters and other automated participants take part in group text conversations.
Developers that use the functionality can open their robotic conversation partners to groups of friends and coworkers, similar to what Slack offers today. Skype also now supports visual cards that let users see pictures, receipts and more, similar to what Facebook offers bot makers through tools for Messenger.
It’s all part of Microsoft’s push to promote conversations as a computing platform. CEO Satya Nadella laid out the vision at its Build conference in March, describing a future in which intelligent assistants like Cortana work with special-purpose bots to help humans perform tasks like making hotel reservations and booking flights.
