New Delhi, Feb. 28 -- Like many frequent users of chat assistants, I've found my equation with them. We've got to know each other. They seem to have figured out the way I work, and though they can be annoying, they try to avoid stepping on my toes. But just as I've become accustomed to conversation with AI, the industry wants to move on.

Apparently, the era of talking to chatbots is already over. Did companies spend vast quantities of money and effort fine-tuning conversation, only to hand over the reins to agents and tell us we don't need to say a thing?

Chatbots don't sound human by accident. Lots of work has gone into shaping that tone. Systems are trained to detect mood from text, infer context in a conversation and even respond wit...