This app will WIN SXSW this year 📱😏

Today, SXSW (unofficially) begins. Tech folks (aka "people from Twitter") will congregate in Austin for one big competition, at the end of which, one app is crowned "the winner" (with some keynotes/BBQ in-between).

Previous SXSW winners include: Twitter, Foursquare, GroupMe, Highlight, Banjo, Secret, and Meerkat. Come to think of it, taking over SXSW may be more of a curse then a treat. 😳 That said, we've asked a few people to predict who they think will stand out this year.

Greylock Partner, Josh Elman: "Houseparty is going to be a breakout as people in Austin hang with their friends back home. I am also excited about the on the ground audio reporting on the new launch of Anchor."

Founders Fund Partner, Cyan Banister, named Punkpost and Hooked as apps to watch this year.

Shots CEO, John Shahidi, said he was excited by the launch of Soon.

Journalist, Taylor Lorenz, says that Whale could be the breakout app.

As for our picks? Facebook's Messenger "Stories" just launched and will be a topic of discussion, but with no Uber or Lyft in Austin this year, surely this app will be the ultimate winner. 🏆

Apps to Watch at SXSW

We asked 34 customers what Viktor does for them. Not one said chatbot.

They kept using words like colleague, coworker, team member. One CEO called it the glue holding their e-commerce business together, which is a lot, but also… you see why. It lives in Slack and plugs into 3,000+ tools, so instead of jumping between tabs, you just ask for the thing. Pull Stripe against HubSpot, check Sentry alerts, spin up a campaign brief, build a landing page, send a report upstairs. It all happens there.

It has already hit top 5 on Product Hunt with 130 comments, is SOC 2 certified, and your data does not train models.

One user said it was the first time AI felt like a real coworker, which is either exciting or slightly concerning depending on your week.