Although chat and voice technology has come a long way, conversational AI doesn’t yet have the skills to mimic the free-flowing, conversational capabilities of humans. Recent advances have positioned assistants to handle the natural rhythms of speaking. For example, Alexa Conversations allows Alexa to answer several questions at once, remember information already provided, and respond to corrections. Google Duplex’s AI leverages pauses and “ums” to sound more natural to the person on the other end of the call. However, these interactions are usually confined to only one topic or goal. With Google’s ongoing development of its LaMDA software, conversational AI is poised to be more flexible and navigate seamlessly from topic to topic, emulating how people interact with each other.