News from Build 2020: Updates for Conversational AI, Alexa Support, Build sessions to watch

The Bot Framework team have been busy, with a bunch of announcements made at Build this year.

The biggest one for me is that the Bot Framework Composer is now GA. Right about now, I should have been half way through a set of talks in different places, talking about how awesome the Bot Framework is and showing you with a demo. Instead, now that it’s GA, you can find out for yourself!  (I’m also going to do this talk virtually, as soon as I can get the chance.) There’s also a load of new functionality I’m looking forward to showing and talking about in the coming weeks.

Alexa, Be a Bot

There are also update announcements about the Bot Framework SDK (now v4.9) and some exciting Azure Bot Service updates, including support in public preview for Amazon Alexa Skills – meaning that your existing Bot Framework bots can be used with speaking tubes everywhere! That’s pretty cool – congrats to all involved in what I know has been a multi-year project involving folks from inside and outside Microsoft. ?

There’s also a move for Virtual Assistant into GA with a v1.0 label, a big update to LUIS, a new capability called Bot Framework Orchestrator that’s in private preview (and will eventually replace Dispatch) and updates to QnAMaker.

In short, there is a LOT of new stuff coming in this space, which is really good to see. I think this is a massive growth area and it’s great to see Microsoft responding.

Find out more at Build 2020

If you want to find out more, read the announcement blog post, and attend these Build 2020 sessions (registration free):

Conversational AI powered Customer and Employee Virtual Assistants

Accelerate bot development in Power Virtual Agents

Or, watch Gary Pretty from the Bot Framework SDK Team as he talks through all the announcements: