Chatbot

A chatbot is software that replies to messages in a text interface — WhatsApp, a website widget, Instagram DMs — and ranges from a rule-based menu of canned replies to a conversational-AI system that understands open-ended questions.

“Chatbot” is the older, broader word, and it covers both ends of that range — which is why it’s worth asking, of any product calling itself one, whether it matches keywords and fixed buttons or actually understands what was typed. A rule-based bot is fast to build and breaks on phrasing it wasn’t scripted for; a conversational-AI-based one costs more to set up and holds up under an unscripted question.

In this category the same underlying assistant usually answers across several channels at once, so “the chatbot” and “the WhatsApp assistant” and “the website widget” often describe one system, not three separate ones.

See it as a website widget on the website chat page.