Characteristics of successful AI chat integrations

We’re still learning how to integrate chat interfaces in existing web apps. A lot of big companies are getting this badly wrong (including Google and Meta). I posit 4 principles of successful chat integrations:

- Must be able to operate on the core primitives of the app

- Must take advantage of the powerful characteristics of natural language

- Allow the user to fluidly mix and match between the traditional UI interface and the chat interface

- Must maintain context across the user’s entire experience.

I discuss each of these with concrete examples of existing products, and also with a simple idea of a chat interface-enabled todo list manager. I also discuss some litmus tests. But if you want the short take-away: imitate Notion, and avoid the mistakes that Google Docs has made.