Glossary

What is a chatbot? From button menus to conversation

Chatbots are programs that hold a written conversation with a person, usually to answer questions or collect information. The clearest answer to “what is a chatbot?” sorts them into two kinds: scripted chatbots follow a menu someone prepared, and AI chatbots understand full sentences and write the reply.

What is a chatbot? A pizzeria example

Slow Rise Pizza, in Providence, Rhode Island, runs its own delivery and has an order chat on its website. It says hi and offers buttons: hours, delivery area, allergens. You tap one and it answers. That’s a chatbot: an automated conversation in writing.

What is a chatbot and how does it work when it’s scripted?

Someone drew a tree ahead of time: if they tap this, say that. The program understands nothing. It walks the tree. It’s predictable and never says anything that wasn’t written for it. It runs out when the question isn’t on the menu: “Can I pay the driver with a card?”

What is a chatbot in AI, and what changes

Instead of a tree, it runs on a language model. The model makes sense of the sentence, even one nobody saw coming, and writes the answer on the spot. It gains flexibility and loses predictability: with nowhere to look a fact up, it can make one up. What matters is whether it has read the company’s own documents, as the guide to building an internal chatbot explains.

What is a chatbot used for: customers or the team

Those are two different jobs. Facing out, it answers on the website what customers ask a hundred times. Facing in, it answers the people who work at the company: how a return gets processed, what the price list says. Customer support has room for both, and it pays to decide who it’s for before you pick a tool.

Chatbot, assistant and agent

People use the three as synonyms, and they aren’t. “Chatbot” names the format: a conversation. An AI assistant also prepares work for you, like an email or a summary. An AI agent has one specific job. The guide AI agent vs. chatbot puts them side by side.

Keep in mind. A script needs upkeep: every new question is one more branch. An AI chatbot needs watching: whatever it tells a customer, it says in your company’s name.

Try it

What’s a classic chatbot like? Ask this one

Tap the buttons and watch where it goes in the script. Then type something that isn’t on the menu.

The whole script

Everything this chatbot knows fits here: one greeting, three buttons and six answers.

Greeting“Hi, I’m the Slow Rise assistant. What do you need?”
- Hours“We’re open Tuesday through Sunday, 5 to 10 p.m. Closed Mondays.”
  - What about holidays?“Regular hours, unless the holiday falls on a Monday.”
- Delivery area“We deliver Downtown, to Federal Hill and to the East Side.”
  - How long does it take?“Between 30 and 45 minutes, depending on the time of day.”
- Allergens“All our dough contains gluten. The menu flags the other allergens.”
  - Do you have gluten-free?“Yes, by special order: ask for it a day ahead.”
Anything else“Sorry, I didn’t get that. Please pick an option.”

It runs entirely on this page, with no AI and without sending anything anywhere: it’s a fixed tree.

One or the other

Chatbot vs. AI chatbot: scripted or not?

Neither wins at everything. For a closed menu, the scripted kind is a good choice: it never goes off script.

	Scripted chatbot	AI chatbot
What it understands	The buttons someone drew for it	Sentences, however they’re worded
If you go off the menu	“Sorry, I didn’t get that”	It tries to answer; without documents, it can make things up
What upkeep takes	Adding a branch for every new question	Keeping the documents it pulls answers from up to date
When it fits	Few questions, always the same ones	Many different questions, or ones that are hard to predict

How it looks in Flipa

Flipa is an assistant for your team, not a chatbot for your website: it doesn’t get installed on your site and it doesn’t talk to your customers. It reads the company’s documents, answers the people who work there while showing the sources it checked, and leaves drafts that a person reviews and sends. Its interface is in Spanish today. If what you want is a chat for the public, see the comparison with CustomGPT.

Frequently asked questions

What people ask before setting up a chatbot

What is a chatbot and how does it work?

It’s a program that holds a conversation in writing. Scripted chatbots walk a tree of options prepared in advance; AI chatbots interpret the sentence and write the answer on the spot.

What is a chatbot used for at a company?

For answering, with no wait, the things people ask at all hours: opening hours, where an order is, how to book an appointment. There are internal ones too, for the team’s questions. When a case goes beyond what was planned for, you still need a person.

What is a chatbot in AI?

One that understands what you type even if nobody planned for it. It can answer from memory, at the risk of making things up, or look in the company’s documents first, which makes it far more reliable.

Chatbot vs. AI: what’s the difference?

A chatbot is a format: software you talk to in a chat window. AI is the technology some chatbots run on. A button-menu chatbot uses no AI at all, while ChatGPT is a chatbot built on an AI language model.

Is Flipa a chatbot?

Not in the usual sense. You do chat with it, but it’s an assistant for the team: it reads your documents, answers with its sources and drafts text. It doesn’t go on your website and it doesn’t talk to your customers.

If the question doesn’t fit on a button, you need something else

Flipa answers your team with what your documents say. Start free, no card needed, or see the plans.

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