I'm obsessed with applying LLMs to language learning software. One thing I am not-so-obsessed with is a wave of conversational chat apps that many startups have begun offering. Having tried them myself, I find them to be quite bland ("Tell me about your day!" ) and often use a speech style that uses direct translation of English phrases into the target language.

I see plenty of potential for LLMs in this space, but the conversation bots I have seen so far are too open-ended and seem half baked.

For users: Is anyone finding these tools helpful?

For the people building them: Are people actually returning to the product?