Chatbot vs Conversational AI: Differences, Examples, Pros & Cons

It is common for people to use the terms chatbot and conversational AI interchangeably. However, there are a few significant differences. In this comprehensive guide, we will explore chatbot vs conversational AI differences in detail, so that you are familiar with these key concepts.

Knowing these differences is important as companies all over the world are deploying both chatbots and conversational AI. So, by the end of this article, you will have a clear idea about which solution is best for you.

Chatbot vs Conversational AI: Knowledge Base

Let’s look at the definitions and uses of both chatbot and conversational AI one by one.

What is a Chatbot? What is it Used for?

Chatbots are computer programs that are created to simulate human conversations and enhance customer support and engagement experience. Modern chatbots are powered by artificial intelligence (AI) and natural language processing (NLP) to understand user queries and send relevant responses.

Some of the common uses of chatbots are:

• Customer support to quickly answer customer questions.
• Provide general product recommendations.
• Facilitate customers and new potential clients in exploring the products and placing orders
• Interacting with website visitors for lead generations.
• Scheduling appointments.
• Marketing and promotion.
• Internal working procedures such as employee support, managing onboarding, task automation, and facilitating inter-department communication.

What is a Conversational AI & What is it Used for?

Conversational AI is a much broader term than the traditional AI chatbots. It includes AI-powered communication technologies, such as chatbots and virtual assistants. Complex and state-of-the-art technologies, such as machine learning, deep learning, and NLP are used in conversational AI to handle both voice and text inputs for accurate responses.

Some of the most prominent examples of conversational AI are Siri, Amazon Alexa, and Google Assistant.

The following are the common uses of conversational AI:

• Providing personalized product recommendations.
• Understand the unique and complex issues of the customers and provide a reliable solution.
• Demonstrate emotional support and empathy when dealing with cases like flight cancellation, late order delivery, or sudden product unavailability.
• Conversational AI is much better at understanding customers' queries as they typically have larger knowledge and better training than a chatbot.
• Now that you are familiar with these definitions and use cases, you can easily distinguish between chatbot and conversational AI.
• One prominent example of a conversational AI platform is iAsk. It is powered by ChatGPT and is emerging as a reliable conversational AI system.

Conversational AI vs Chatbot: Examples

Let’s discuss the different examples of both conversational AI and chatbot so the differences between them become clearer and easier to understand.

HM Customer Support Chatbot

HM is one of the most popular multinational clothing companies. It has a large collection of fast-fashion clothing items and serves over 75 markets around the world. Due to such a massive scale, it is understandable that the company is likely to get a lot of inquiries from existing and potential customers.

The clothing brand has a well-designed chatbot in its customer support section to facilitate website visitors. The chatbot welcomes the user and asks them to ask to provide more information to get help.

When you give simple queries, such as order return, the chatbot provides a relevant pre-written response or follow-up question.

However, once you enter a complex query, the H&M chatbot will refer you to a human agent as it is a rule-based chatbot and not a conversational AI chatbot.

Bank of America’s Conversational AI

Bank of America has an advanced conversational AI chatbot called Erica. It is a very popular conversational AI among Americans as it provides guidance about general financial rules and regulations and mimics human interaction in dealing with specific cases of users.

Here’s an example of Erica handling a complex mortgage-related problem like a pro.

Source：https://www.business2community.com/

Payoneer’s Live Chatbot

Payoneer is a renowned financial services company. It offers comprehensive digital payment services. Millions of people use Payoneer around the world, so different types of issues and queries are bound to arise about the platform. Hence, it has a reliable live chat option.

The live chat initially starts with a chatbot with pre-defined questions. The bot tries to resolve your queries as much as possible.

However, if it’s not available to resolve your issue, it will connect you with a specialist.

AirAsia’s Conversational AI

Interacting with airline customer support is often a difficult task for customers due to large quotes and long waiting hours. However, some of the major airlines like AirAsia have taken the lead in this area by integrating conversational AI chatbots into their customer support.

AirAsia has named its conversational AI Bo. It’s capable of providing detailed information about the different routes and also suggests the most suitable airline as per the specific requirements of a traveler in real-time.

Difference Between Chatbot and AI Chatbot: Which Is Better？

The key difference between a chatbot and a conversational AI chatbot is that a traditional rule-based chatbot uses pre-defined keywords and language identifiers to provide pre-written responses.

On the other hand, conversational AI chatbots are powered by modern AI and machine algorithms to replicate natural human interaction as much as possible. A chatbot can handle simple inquiries, but a conversational AI platform is useful in handling complex issues and producing a relevant and satisfactory answer in real-time.

As a result, human agents can have more time and energy to focus on other issues instead of answering repetitive questions.

Let’s explore other important differences between chatbots and conversational AI chatbots in terms of their advantages and disadvantages.

• Cost

  Rule-based chatbots are highly cost-effective for businesses as they don’t have to hire human agents to answer repetitive questions. Moreover, chatbots are useful for new and growing companies that don’t necessarily have to deal with complex inquiries from customers.
  Training and implementing a conversational AI chatbot to handle complex questions can be quite expensive for companies, especially new small-sized businesses. Hence, in terms of cost-effectiveness, a chatbot is more beneficial than a conversational AI system.


Source：https://appinventiv.com/

• Adaptability

  Conversational AI solutions are much more adaptable than rule-based chatbots. They can naturally mimic human interaction and respond to changing situations in real-time. On the other hand, traditional chatbots operate within a specific set of rules to deliver the relevant response when some specific keywords are triggered.
  Therefore, conversational AI chatbots are suitable for industries and businesses that are always evolving. Whereas, businesses that don’t go through any major core changes should rely on chatbots and focus on their continuous training and improvement to ensure maximum accuracy.

• Engagement Level

  There are significant differences in the engagement level offered by chatbots and conversational AI chatbots. Companies that are using an AI system primarily to increase engagement are likely to find conversational AI chatbots useful in mimicking human interactions and increasing engagement across the board.
  On the other hand, chatbots are useful in ensuring a high engagement level when it comes to common and pre-decided customer support queries. For instance, asking about business timings, product availability, contact information, and other such queries.


Source：https://cdn.prod.website-files.com/

How to Pick the Right Type of Chatbot?

Both rules-based chatbot and conversational AI technologies have their pros and cons. Ultimately, it all comes down to your specific requirements and what you aim to achieve by integrating such tools into your website and social media channels. Therefore, it is recommended that you always analyze your requirements, niche, and competitors to determine which type of chatbot will be more suitable for your business.

GPTBots: Easy Start With Chatbots

Conversational AI has its benefits, but it can be quite complex and expensive to set up. So, every brand and organization should start easy by integrating chatbots into their digital presence.

GPTBots is one reliable chatbot creator that can help you achieve this goal of creating and integrating a well-trained chatbot into your business. Being a no-code platform, GPTBots facilitate both technical and non-technical individuals to enjoy the numerous benefits of having a chatbot.

Here’s how you can create a chatbot with GPTBots and integrate it into your business:

Register on GPTBots and create your project by entering your name and the company’s name.

You can choose a suitable template for your chatbot from the large collection of templates available within GPTBots. These templates are a great launching pad for you, even if you have some very specific and unique requirements.

Proper training of the chatbot is vital before you integrate it into your website or social media channels. Open the Documents section located under Knowledge on the left bar to start training your chatbot. Properly train the chatbot by uploading an extensive collection of files, such as online text, website links, spreadsheets, etc.

For instance, if you want to add an article to the knowledge base of your chatbot, you can simply do so by selecting Add Documents and choosing Website.

Another option you have to configure the bot is changing the Flow to ensure the bot has access to the right knowledge bases to respond to questions with relevant answers.

If you want to edit the knowledge base or add a new one, you can drag and drop a Knowledge Vector into your bot.

After the configuration and training steps are complete, the next step is to integrate the chatbot into a platform, such as WhatsApp, Zapier, Slack, and many others.

Once the chatbot is integrated, you can access the chat history and monitor other key metrics to ensure the chatbot is working as per your requirements. You can also use the Config option to tweak the chatbot from time to time.

The above steps show that GPTBots is a comprehensive tool to create, configure, train, integrate, and manage chatbots.

Conclusion

Overall, there are key differences between chatbots and conversational AI, but they both serve the same purpose: to facilitate businesses in providing better customer support and increasing engagement.

The good thing is that a platform like GPTBots is available to help you manage this entire process from start to finish without any issues. So, explore GPTBots and create a bot with it that can help you streamline your business procedures.