AI chatbots for business: customer service, sales and internal support
A new generation of conversational assistants
Many people still picture chatbots as the rigid, scripted bots of a decade ago that could handle only a handful of predefined questions. Today’s chatbots run on artificial intelligence and large language models (LLMs), a different technology altogether. With an LLM, a chatbot can hold a fluent, natural conversation, analyze context and draw conclusions in a fraction of a second.
How can a modern company use an AI chatbot?
- Smart customer service (customer success): Compared with “Press 1 or 2” scripts, an AI chatbot can pick up on a customer’s emotions, give a complete answer drawn from your company’s extensive knowledge base (such as your terms and conditions and FAQs) and solve technical issues 24/7, 365 days a year, with no vacations or sick days.
- Active sales (lead generation): In an online store, a chatbot can act as a virtual sales advisor. By asking targeted questions about a shopper’s preferences, it can recommend the right pair of shoes or piece of electronics, suggest a complementary product (cross-selling) and guide the customer straight to the cart.
- Internal assistant (HR/IT): AI works just as well inside your organization: employees can ask a bot in your company’s Slack workspace about PTO rules or the business travel policy, or have it summarize the latest project guidelines, which saves your HR and administration teams time.
The future of interfaces
As LLMs improve, voice and text conversation is becoming the dominant way people interact with software. When you deploy your own AI model trained on your company’s specific data, you gain a major edge over competitors: faster responses and a more modern brand image.
