CommandBar Goes Mobile with Copilot
While GitHub has announced that the company founded on the Git version control system is now “re-founded” on its Copilot AI developer assistant, CommandBar, the maker of an AI-powered user assistance platform, has announced that its own flagship AI-powered Copilot, along with the rest of its platform, is now compatible with mobile apps, for iOS and Android.
James Evans, CEO and co-founder of San Francisco-based CommandBar, said with the new mobile capability any company with CommandBar can embed AI-powered user assistance experiences into their mobile app.
CommandBar customers, such as HashiCorp, Gusto, Freshworks, Yotpo and LaunchDarkly have used CommandBar’s platform via the company’s desktop and web app Copilot to power hundreds of thousands of end-user chats. Evans said the CommandBar Copilot platform is used by more than 15 million end users.
Mobile Platform
“Our platform, and Copilot in particular, prioritizes end users, ensuring that platforms are easy to navigate, cutting down on time users spend clicking around figuring out how to do something — or, worse, abandoning the app altogether due to friction,” Evans said in a statement. “After seeing what an impact we’ve been able to drive on desktop, it was only natural to develop a tool making it accessible to customers with mobile apps or companies that are mobile-first. CommandBar’s platform touches millions of end users, which is only growing with our expansion into mobile.”
Mobile applications are a huge opportunity in the digital adoption and user assistance category. Most companies have a mobile presence — and assistance is vital because the screens are smaller, there’s no keypad or mouse, and often users are on the go and have less time to spend understanding an interface, the company said.
CommandBar’s platform, including its new web and mobile copilot offering, provides three main pieces for user companies: Assistance, Guidance and Infrastructure.
In terms of assistance, the platform provides natural language interfaces that let users describe their goals and receive personalized answers and walkthroughs. Copilot enables users to chat with a personalized user assistant that learns their preferences over time.
Regarding guidance, the platform offers embedded walkthroughs that can be proactively triggered based on the user’s behavior. For example, proactively suggesting a tutorial video if the user appears confused.
And as for infrastructure, the new mobile offering helps companies to coordinate how they assist users across desktop and mobile, so users have one cohesive experience rather than multiple disjointed ones that make them feel like a new user multiple times over, the company said.
Mobile Regrets
In a blog post announcing CommandBar for Mobile, Evans said he resisted creating a mobile app because he wanted the company to be laser-focused on its mission of developing software to make all web and desktop apps easier to use.
However, “I actually regret not launching a mobile product sooner,” he wrote. “When we dug into it with our customers who have mobile apps, it became clear the problems we solve on desktop are even more acute on mobile:
- Limited screen space
- Users are in a hurry with a specific job in mind
- The status quo for mobile user assistance is bad — in-app browser horror, big interrupting pop-ups, incessant ‘rate me’ asks”
Features such as HelpHub make it easy for users to find training content, tutorials, etc., with no in-app browser. The app also features nudges to announce new features being shipped, to onboard users, get reviews, and more without being annoying or intrusive, Evans said.
In addition, Evans cited some use cases to get started with, including onboarding checklists for new users, driving App Store/Google Play reviews with a nudge, and prompting users with your changelog whenever they update to a new app version.
The company has built SDKs for iOS, Android, and React Native to make it easy to add CommandBar to whatever your mobile app is.
