Chatbot (conversational AI program)
Japanese チャットボット（対話型AIプログラム）
A chatbot is a program built to talk with people through text or voice. Some pick from set answers and others use an AI model to write new ones, so what you can trust it with depends on which kind it is.
A chatbot is like a help-desk clerk turned into a program. Older chatbots mostly picked from a prepared list of questions and answers, so they could not handle anything outside that list. The AI chatbots common today use a large language model to understand what you mean, keep track of the conversation, and write a new answer each time. Services such as ChatGPT and Gemini are AI chatbots.
Watch out An AI chatbot can give answers that sound right but are wrong or incomplete. If you add one to your shop's website, make it clear to customers that they are talking to a chatbot, and have it answer important questions such as prices or refunds from documents a person has checked. Also find out where the things customers type are stored.
Source: What Is a Chatbot? | IBM · FTC Launches Inquiry into AI Chatbots Acting as Companions (checked 2026-10-26)