Some Creativity

Why Building AI Agents for Teams is a Huge Opportunity

Over the past 7+ years, I’ve been deeply involved in developing bots and conversational assistants. One lesson that has consistently emerged is the importance of timely notifications for keeping users engaged. A well-timed notification can be the nudge that brings users back, provided it’s useful and not just noise.

As we advance towards AI assistants capable of handling more complex tasks, these tasks inevitably take more time to complete. This introduces a need: how do we notify users when a task is done? There are a few ways to address this. One approach is to build a dedicated app and rely on Apple or Android’s push notification infrastructure. But this comes with its own set of challenges—developing, maintaining, and getting users to download and engage with your app can be a significant hurdle.

Another option is to build a Progressive Web App (PWA). PWAs offer cross-platform compatibility, allowing you to send push notifications and work offline, all without the need for separate native apps for iOS and Android. PWAs certainly lower the barrier to entry in terms of development effort, and they can be a powerful tool for reaching users across different devices. However, there’s another, potentially more effective path: integrating with a chat platform like Teams.

Why Teams?

When you build for a platform like Teams, you’re reducing your engineering effort right from the start. Instead of building and maintaining a mobile app—or even a PWA—you integrate with a platform where users are already spending their time. And the benefits don’t stop there:

  1. Cross-Platform Compatibility: When your bot app is integrated with Teams, it’s instantly available across all platforms where Teams operates—whether it’s iOS, Android, or desktop. This means your app reaches users wherever they are, without the need for separate development efforts.
  2. Native Integration with Communication Channels: Unlike a standalone PWA or mobile app, an app built for Teams is natively embedded in users’ communication workflows. This makes adoption seamless because your app is already part of the tool users rely on for collaboration.
  3. Large User Base: Teams boasts over 300 million monthly active users. By getting your app into the Teams App Store, you have direct access to this vast audience, significantly lowering the barrier to entry—your app is already where they are.

Leveraging Teams’ Unique Features

But the advantages of targeting Teams don’t end with distribution and ease of integration. Teams offers a set of features that can supercharge the growth of your app. Here’re a few:

  • Group Chats and Channels: Teams supports group chats and channels, which means you can create scenarios that not only engage individual users but also encourage others in the group or organization to discover and use your app.
  • Collaborative Meeting Apps: Additionally, Teams allows developers to build apps specifically for use during meetings. These apps can enhance real-time collaboration, making your app an integral part of users’ interactive experiences during meetings.

The Bottom Line

So, where does this leave us? Asynchronous tasks drive engagement, and effective engagement often hinges on timely notifications. Building your own mobile app involves significant engineering effort and relies on users downloading, installing, and enabling notifications for your app. While a PWA can offer cross-platform compatibility and push notification capabilities, targeting a platform like Teams provides unique advantages. These include deep integration into users’ workflows, seamless collaboration features, and access to a large, engaged user base.

As we move toward a future where AI agents can handle more complex reasoning and tasks, leveraging chat platforms like Teams is an opportunity too significant to overlook.

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