In this special BONUS episode, Peter Swimm—conversational AI veteran, creator of BotKit (the open-source chatbot framework that powered Slack and Teams bots), and former Principal Product Manager at Microsoft Copilot Studio—shares what 25+ years in tech taught him about working with AI. From his brutal experiment of running an entire business on voice-based AI for a week, to why he treats AI more like R2-D2 than C-3PO, Peter offers a grounded, practical perspective on where AI fits in software development teams.
From BotKit to Copilot Studio: A Front-Row Seat to the AI Evolution
“We had the number one bot in the Slack app store, because there were only 8 bots, and ours used regex. To show you how far we’ve come.”
Peter’s journey into conversational AI started with a newspaper ad and a creative writing background. When Slack launched its API, Peter and BotKit co-creator Ben Brown immediately saw that building bots wasn’t just a technical challenge—it was a social and creative one, like writing scripts for plays that interface with people in their daily lives. That insight powered BotKit into becoming the backbone of Slack and Teams bots, and eventually led to Microsoft acquiring the company. Peter spent years inside Microsoft shaping Copilot Studio, working on connectors that bridge the gap between APIs and real-world work. But the experience also gave him a healthy dose of perspective: he can show you slide decks from 2016 that promise the same things today’s AI pitches promise, always saying “within 5 years.” That pattern recognition shapes his practical, no-hype approach.
The 3,000 Scripts Experiment: Why AI-Last Beats AI-First
“At the end of the day, if I’ve been prompting all day, I should have a computer program that works offline, that works without a subscription. Otherwise, I didn’t really make anything.” Continue reading BONUS: From 3,000 Scripts to 3 Tools – Building AI-Last Software With Conversational AI Pioneer Peter Swimm
