The Present and Future of Bots in Software Engineering

Software engineering bots are applications that are able to react to external stimuli, such as events triggered by tools and messages posted by users, and run automated tasks in response, working as an interface between users and services. Bots often include conversational capabilities to interact with end users through textual messages (in chatbots) and speech (in voicebots) in the same communication channels as their human counterparts. Bots can support technical and social activities in software engineering, including communication and decision making.