"Conversational UI" is the new skeuomorphism.

Interface designers seem to have an uncanny ability to understand metaphor at the shallowest possible level.

A back and forth exchange of words is probably the least interesting thing about conversations—but that's all most "conversational UIs" are.

See Gordon Pask's conversation theory for a much more interesting way of thinking about conversational interfaces: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conversat….