What conversational AI is and where businesses use it

Chatbots on the website, assistants on WhatsApp, voicebots on the phone, internal assistants for employees: these are different products built on the same foundation. Behind them are three capabilities. Understanding the request, even if it is badly written. Remembering what was said a few messages earlier. Deciding what to answer or which action to take.

Language models have changed this field a great deal. Before, you needed hand-drawn flows for every question you expected; now the system also handles unexpected requests. The design work remains, though: what the assistant can do, with which data, when it hands over to a person and on which channels it answers.

An example in an SMB

A hotel in the hills uses the same conversational AI across several channels. On the website it answers questions about rooms and services, on WhatsApp it handles guests' requests during their stay, on the phone it takes restaurant bookings out of hours. The instructions and information are the same, so the answers stay consistent everywhere.

The most common mistakes

• Thinking in separate channels and ending up with three assistants that say different things.
• Designing only the answers and not the handover to a person.
• Measuring how many conversations take place instead of how many get resolved.

Why it matters to you

Customers write and call where they prefer. A single conversational foundation lets you answer well on several channels without multiplying the work.

All the words of AI, explained simply, are in the glossary.