Chatbot

A chatbot is any program you interact with by holding a conversation. You type or speak, it responds, and the exchange continues. The idea is not new. Simple chatbots have answered customer questions on websites for years, often by following a fixed script and matching your words to a list of canned replies.

What changed recently is how capable they became. Today’s chatbots, such as ChatGPT and Claude, are built on a large language model, which lets them understand what you mean and reply in fluent, natural language. Rather than picking from a short list of scripted answers, they generate a fresh response each time, tailored to what you asked.

For you, this is often the friendliest way into AI. There is nothing to install and no special language to learn. You describe what you need in ordinary words, much as you would ask a helpful colleague, and the chatbot does its best to help.

It is worth knowing that “chatbot” describes the conversational interface, the chat window you talk through. When a system can also take actions on your behalf, such as booking something or searching the web, it starts to become an AI agent, which is a related but more capable idea.