Chatbots and bring your own device (BYOD) are two of the most predominate technology trends right now. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about chat bots and how they are changing some business workflows.

I’m predicting that some innovative enterprise mobility management (EMM) vendor could implement chat bots to assist with the onboarding of employee mobile devices into a corporate BYOD program. While there’s been a lot of improvements around enterprise app stores, the concept of a touch-free device onboarding is still ways off for some enterprises. Less technically savvy users will have questions and need their hand-held to get their smartphone live on corporate applications.

Chatbots could be another communications channel to alert mobile users about needed software updates, policy changes, and additional security measures that an organization is putting in place to protect their corporate data, users, and to mitigate other risks.

Consider that popular chat platforms Slack and Atlassian HipChat support chatbots. There’s also a growing list of chat bots that support SMS. Chatbots are gradually finding a place with online customer service applications. Chatbots taking the hand-ff for BYOD onboarding support in the near future isn’t too far of a stretch. Back in the pre-bot days when I was freelancing for CNET TechRepublic and writing heavily about BYOD and enterprise mobility, I did hear from a company that was trying to adapt their support tool to serve up BYOD content. The 2016 answer would be a chatbot.

A few years ago, I came to see that the bill is going to come due for some enterprises that overspent for BYOD support. Chatbots could free up help desk support from some BYOD support tasks leading to call deflection and overhead cost savings.

Will these two trends meet together at the help desk? Share your opinion in the comments.

Originally published at willkelly.org on September 9, 2016.

Hi! My name is Will Kelly. I’m a technical writer and analyst based in the Washington, DC area. I’ve worked with clients like NetApp, Dell, and Neustar to develop technical, training, and thought leadership content. My articles have been published by TechBeacon, Projects@Work, CNET TechRepublic, Network World, Toolbox.com, ZDNet.com, and others. Follow me on Twitter:@willkelly.