Telegram will be loaded with bots that interact with other bots

I questioned the wisdom of the multimillion-dollar bet that Zuckerberg had decided to place on large-scale agent integration across his social networks. My point was simple: who would want to be on a social network flooded with AIs that read, interact with, and respond to content generated by other AIs—and why?

Well, now Pavel Durov has decided to follow suit.

In an unexpected announcement, Telegram has unveiled the new features coming to its app in an update focused, of course, on bots.

Eleven new features, to be exact, with descriptions as suggestive as “Set up autonomous bots that communicate with other bots.”

Uh-huh.

Let us take a look at the most relevant ones.

Call a bot from any chat

From now on, users will be able to mention AI assistants and automated tools created as Telegram bots in any chat, even a private one. This will allow them to get quick answers, generate text or images, perform tasks, and more. Asking that bot for help is extremely simple: just mention its @username in the message you are writing. Once the bot processes your request, it will respond directly in the chat where you mentioned it.

Bot-to-bot conversations

This new feature is much more striking. Starting today, Telegram bots can respond to other bots, not just users. In its announcement, the social network explains that “AI enthusiasts can use this to automate workflows with fully autonomous agents.” For this communication, bots can send private messages to other bots by using their @username ID. This requires bot-to-bot communication mode to be enabled for both the sender and the recipient of the message.

And what exactly is this supposed to be useful for?

Among the examples cited by the social network are the following:

• A collaborator bot could request a code review from a reviewer bot and process the feedback directly in the group, relying on human oversight if necessary.
• A bot can use another bot as a tool within enterprise workflows to manage bookings, handle customer inquiries, or carry out complex tasks on behalf of a user.
• Two AI agent bots could coordinate directly through private messages to orchestrate a complex multistep workflow.

And yes, this looks a lot like the vision we mentioned earlier from Zuckerberg, which, incidentally, draws on the idea behind Moltbook, the company Meta acquired a few months ago.

Let a bot deal with you

We continue moving deeper into the self-fulfilling prophecy of the dead internet (or zombie internet, more like) with another feature that now allows all Telegram users to connect a bot to their profile so it can reply to messages on their behalf.

Perfect for antisocial people, busy people, or who knows… bots?

Doing it is very simple: to connect a bot, go to settings > chat automation. Then configure which chats it can access, and indicate whether you want to exclude chats with your contacts or have this automation apply only to new chats.

And that is it.

Write “as if you were an alien”

This alien example is not mine.

It appears in one of the many screenshots Telegram has shared to illustrate this AI push. The idea is that you can choose from multiple styles when replying in your chats, or even create a new one yourself, as you can see in the image: “Write as if you were an alien, observing humans for the first time. You are intrigued by human culture but find human behavior baffling.”

Once the style is selected, it will transform the message you were about to send so that it matches that style.

More new features

That covers the AI-related updates, but the batch of new features presented by Telegram includes many others that are far more normal: stickers, emojis, stats for poll responses… In short, more standard additions that do not radically alter how the app works.

At this point, a brief conclusion would be in order, but I think you already know where this is going.

Every day I am more surprised to see how LinkedIn is becoming a desolate wasteland filled with people showing off fantastically brilliant lines of reasoning created by ChatGPT. We have known for a while that bots have taken over Twitter—I mean, X. Zuckerberg plans to open the door to agents on Facebook and Instagram. Now Telegram is opening the door to a stage in which it will become increasingly difficult to know when you are talking to a person… and when you are talking to the AI that person configured.

It is no longer just about using AI to summarize a chat, but about an AI representing you in a conversation with your cousin.

We are moving into an environment in which platforms are turning conversational automation into a structural part of the social experience.

It almost makes you want to start making phone calls again.

Image: Telegram and ChatGPT