Chatbot or AI Bot: Who Will Survive?

Artificial Intelligence  

Conversational interfaces have already surpassed other forms of human-computer interface and are already impacting other aspects of social communication. These factors are leading to increased popularity of both chatbot and AI Bots in computer systems. What does this mean for the future?

Overview of chatbot and AI Bot

A chatbot is simply a computer program that is designed to interact with the human visitors, especially on a website. It is not possible for bots to solve each and every problem; however, they can solve many problems encountered by the users in a faster pace. It is basically a win-win situation for both customers and support team of the company. 

Nowadays, we are often interacting with bots. And many of us must have encountered annoying dumb bots. A dumb bot can eventually make the customers close the browser because it is so annoying. For an instance, the dumb bot can reply saying ‘cool’ all the time when we are desperately looking for a specific answer from an expert. The bot should know when to transfer the conversation with the support team, but sadly, many bots fail to do so.

The Eugene Goostman chatbot reportedly beat the iconic Turing Test five years ago

Chatbot vs. AI Bot: Whom to choose?

You must have realized the importance of bots, and you may be confused about investing in bots. If this is the case, then this part of the article will clear your confusion. Whether you decide to invest on a simple Chatbot or AI Bot is all your choice, but there is something you should know about both of them before making a choice. Investing on bots is not really a small decision. Do you know why? It is because the bots will play a crucial role in determining the image of your company. It is like your artificial virtual assistant.

Just assume that you’ve invested in bots without taking care of many factors. If that bot keeps on annoying the visitors without solving their problems, do you think that those visitors will trust your website in the near future? They will simply close your website and move on to the next website in search of a better solution. So, it is necessary to invest wisely.

Chatbots are the bots developed on the basis of certain rules. These bots are very easy to develop than AI Bots. The majority of Chatbots is only developed for a single purpose, and i.e. chats or to provide single dimensional customer service. Some companies also deploy a chatbot avatar. It contains a simple infrastructure, and these bots are quicker to develop and deploy. These Chatbots may not be a good choice for a long-term use, as it lacks reliability and learning.

Slack bots are a very popular part of the application

However, in the recent times, PaaS solutions are seen around chatbots with an aim to provide a better service.

On the other hand, AI Bots are very much similar to Chatbots, but one thing in AI Bots makes it quite different than Chatbots, and i.e. artificial intelligence components like NLP (Natural Language Processing), the learning center, brain, and more. We can say that Chatbots are like a small child who can learn to say simple words after it is taught to him/her; whereas AI Bots are like an adult who can speak, learn, and improve from their mistakes.

There are many supportive elements that make AI Bots more advanced than Chatbots, and they are:

• Database to store and retrieve the knowledge.
• Central Nervous System (CNS) or brain like IBM Watson, MS Luis, and so on for processing the data, interacting, and learning. 
• Actual user interface for letting the end users interact, and this can be done via various platforms like messenger, inside apps, website’s chat facility, and more. 

Even with all these features, you cannot completely rely on the bots to solve everything. The Facebook’s messenger boss also admits that bots are still in its early phase, and there is a long way to go. Bots need to evolve and improve for providing better performance in the future. However, with a Chatbot, it is not possible. When someone complains about AI Bots, you can expect the people managing the bots to improve the bots in the future for providing better performance.

When AI Bots are consistently improved, they can provide support in various functions like sales, customer information management, 24/7 customer support, analytics, and more. 

Related articles

• Purdue's Jennifer Neville Discusses The Easy and Hard Problems of AI 
• Is Human-Level Artificial Intelligence a False Promise? 
• A Super-Powered Panel Discusses Superintelligence 

Conclusion

What have you decided? Have you decided to go for a Chatbot or AI Bot? I understand that you are concerned about the cost; however, you should not only take cost as a factor for consideration to choose between Chatbots and AI Bots. Instead of overemphasizing at the cost, you should forecast your return on investment. Well, it is possible to fulfill a single purpose of your business by investing on a Chatbot, but by adding a little bit more money for the setup of AI Bots, you can actually enhance the overall performance of your business, leading to a greater return on investment.

By  Vivian Michaels	Embed
Author Bio - Vivian Michaels is a huge tech enthusiast who likes to write articles on evolving technology. He is also a Fitness coach with a sincere desire to help people achieve their individual fitness goals.