Chat UI is only one part of the move to very small UI. This is a big trend and if it works it will wipe out a lot of UI design. Good UI design is hard. It’s a slow, intermittent, and expensive process for companies that produce software and services, so they will have a natural preference for smaller UI. More importantly, a UI takes time from the user. Think about that. Users also want to get rid of UI so they don’t have to spend time looking at it. Chat is only one aspect of this. Think about reports and dashboards. A lot of UI talent goes into making dashboards, and then users have to look at them. Users hate that. They want the computer to look at the reports, and tell them if something needs their attention. In the future, they will want AI to completely replace reports and dashboards with a little message that says “here is something you should do or decide on”. It could be an SMS or a chat meesage. What about eCommerce? That occupies a lot of UI talent. What will they do when the computer can figure out what you need and just ask you to confirm. In these cases, the people who “understand the problem” have nothing to do with UI and UI design. They are people that look at data and build AI to analyze it. AI will replace a lot more UI than we expect.