Bots have become an important aspect of the technology and communication environment in recent years. It appears countless contact centres and companies are tapping into the benefits of having bots handle at least some of their processes. However, while machine learning and bot technology might be the future of productivity, they’re not without their risks.
The collaborative nature of the new agile framework and the drive towards digital transformation (DX) means that bots can help us to automate various complex tasks and ensure that communication and collaboration services run smoothly. Indeed, Slack has become a powerful platform for developers to build and implement bots into their workday. The question is, does adding more bots to a system really make it more effective, or does it just open the possibility for more security issues?
The Rise and Rise of Slack Technology
You probably know Slack as the collaboration app that everyone seems to be talking about. This workstream tool has solved several productivity issues for companies today. It’s where people can communicate with their co-workers no matter where they are or share files for collaboration regardless of whether you’re in a different country to the person you need to work with.
Of course, today, Slack is more than just a collaboration tool, it’s also an environment where developers can modify JIRA issues and update application settings. There are over 250 bots living in the Developer Tools category designed to help admins make their business more efficient, and there’s a benefit to having these systems in place. With the right bots, developers can tie everything in their communication framework together more seamlessly.
The issue, of course, is that more bots could also lead to more gaps in the security system. Because they’re embedded within social and messaging apps, bots are sometimes better positioned to carry out exploits to do with the mining of personal data. Without knowing what kind of technology you’re using, it’s hard to determine whether a bot is working as it should be.
Getting to Know the Bots
Ultimately, having more bots in the Slack space means that developers can gain more visibility into what’s going on during software development stages. Of course, bots and AI are very different things. Bots don’t handle failures with ease, and if the system faces an error, it’s up to a developer to find out what broke their processes and how they can get things back on track. This means figuring out whether it’s the system that’s broken, the bot, or the code.
Perhaps getting to know the systems behind the bots could be the first step in making a positive change. If developers can figure out what’s going on with each of the processes in their system, they can take additional steps to ensure security, and reduce the risk of breakdowns.
Bots are a fantastic way to simplify complex processes and automate menial tasks, but they also come with risks. If developers don’t take the time to think about how the work behind the scenes is happening with the help of bots, then they won’t know how to fix issues when they occur. While bots have a lot of benefits to offer both on Slack and elsewhere, it’s important to remember that human developers still have their own part to play.
