Chatbot
AI
AI
A chatbot is software that answers questions through a chat window. Simple ones follow fixed choices; AI chatbots understand free language and draw on your own information.
Broadly there are two kinds. A rule-based bot works with buttons and scenarios: predictable, but stuck the moment a question is not in the script. An AI chatbot runs on a language model and answers in plain language, usually based on your own documents and pages.
It works well for recurring questions: opening hours, delivery times, terms, status queries, and routing people to the right page or colleague. That absorbs part of your customer questions and gathers data on what people actually want to know.
What makes a chatbot good is the way out. There must always be a clear route to a human, and the bot must be able to say it does not know instead of inventing something.
Tip
Provide a clear route to a human. That way a chatbot keeps helping customers instead of holding them back.
Related terms
- AI agentAn AI agent is a system that uses a language model not only to answer but to act: fetch data, use tools and perform actions in other systems.
- LLMAn LLM is a large language model trained to predict the next word, which lets it understand and generate text. ChatGPT, Claude and Gemini run on them.
- Customer experienceCustomer experience (CX) is a customer's total experience with your organisation: from ad and website to delivery, invoice and service.
- CSATCSAT is the customer satisfaction score: right after an interaction you ask how satisfied someone was, usually on a 1–5 scale.
- Lead generationLead generation is attracting people or companies who show interest and leave their details, so sales can act on them.