“Have your bot call my bot.” That used to sound like the punchline of a bad joke about IA’s dystopic future. But it is a prospect that is no longer funny or farfetched, as was made amply clear when Google’s CEO Sundar Pichai showed off the latest conversational capabilities associated with Google Assistant.

The month of May has brought with it a number of executive moves and company acquisitions with direct bearing on Conversational Commerce. Cisco acquired Accompany, a startup whose core product is termed a “Virtual Assistant” by some accounts and, perhaps more accurately, an “adaptive virtual chief of staff.”

A little less than a year later, we’re observing that some of Apple’s partners have been more effective than others in enlisting recognized brands into the iMessage Business Chat fold.