Jargon Buster / Chatbot
Chatbot.
AI & AutomationSoftware that holds a text or voice conversation with people, usually to answer questions or route enquiries.
What is a chatbot?
A chatbot is software that holds a conversation with people through text or voice, usually on a website, in a messaging app or inside a business system, to answer questions or carry out simple tasks.
Older chatbots follow scripted menus of buttons. Newer ones run on a large language model, so they understand questions written in everyday language and reply in full sentences, ideally using your own content as the source.
Why it matters
Enquiries arrive at all hours, and a slow reply often means a lost job. A good chatbot can answer the routine questions instantly, collect the details your team needs and book a call while the prospect is still interested. A bad one does the opposite: it blocks people from a human, gives wrong answers and makes a professional firm look careless. Whatever your chatbot tells a customer, they will treat it as your company speaking.
The main types
- Rule-based bots Fixed menus and scripted answers. Predictable and cheap, but frustrating once a question falls outside the script.
- AI-powered bots Runs on a language model, so it handles open questions. It needs firm limits or it will improvise.
- Grounded in your content Answers only from your own pages, policies and price lists, and says so when it cannot find an answer.
- Action-taking bots Books appointments, checks order status or creates a CRM record, which brings it close to being an AI agent.
The honest view
Most website chatbots exist because the software came with one. Few customers asked for them. Visitors usually want one of three things: an answer to a simple question, a price range or a quick route to a person. A bot that gets in the way of those costs you enquiries.
The good ones are narrow. They answer from your own content, admit when they do not know, and hand over cleanly to a human with the conversation attached. Tribunals have already held a company to an answer its chatbot gave, so ungrounded improvisation is a genuine liability.
What to do about it
Read through your last few months of enquiries and group the questions people actually ask. If a handful of questions make up most of the volume, a grounded chatbot may earn its place; if every enquiry is different, a clear contact form and a fast human reply will do better. If you build one, test it with awkward and off-topic questions before launch, and always offer a visible way to reach a person.
Related terms.
Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)
A method where AI first looks up your trusted documents, then writes its answer from what it finds.
AI & AutomationSee more HHallucination
When an AI model states something false or invented with complete confidence.
AI & AutomationSee more AAI Agent
Software that uses an AI model to work towards a goal, choosing its own steps and using tools to get there.
AI & AutomationSee more CConversion Rate Optimisation (CRO)
The ongoing work of increasing the share of website visitors who take a valuable action, such as an enquiry.
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