Chatbots

Chatbots are intelligent conversational software that interacts with users via text or voice commands in a human-like manner.

There are different types of chatbots. Some types of chatbots are rule-based, menu/button based, natural-language processing (NLP) based, and AI/machine learning-driven. There are also hybrid-based chatbots that combine AI technology with rule based systems.  Rule-based, menu-based bots and even some of the older AI bots (Pre-GPT/LLM bots) will typically have pre-programmed responses or pre-set options.

While AI chatbots will use machine-learning algorithms and other natural language processing (NLP) methods to respond to user questions or "prompts". NLP is a field of artificial intelligence that allows computer systems to organize human text into patterns to extract meaning from human language. NLP is what allows chatbots to understand the context of what is being said, not just specific commands like rule-based bots or menu-based bots. Newer chatbots may have machine-learning algorithms, conversational memory, and context-windows so they learn from the conversation and refer back to it.