Exploring the Difference Between Chat-bots and Conversational AI

Let's distinguish between two of the main AI technologies escalating currently, Chatbots and Conversational AI

Personal and professional contacts are becoming increasingly computerized on a daily basis. In recent times, it is more likely that our friends and family members communicate through texts, calls, or face-times than having a face-to-face conversation. Similarly, business-to-customer relationships are also being fostered in a digital environment.

Because technology has become significantly smarter, interactions between customers and computers have become more convenient and effective. Such relationships are largely due to chat-bots and conversational artificial intelligence (AI). Even though they achieve similar results, they aren't the same. Misleading terminology is inherent to every sector that obtains huge popularity, attention, and acceptance in a short period of time and ultimately causes a lot of confusion. Conversational AI and chatbots are frequently used interchangeably to explain the same thing, which is true to some extent, but their differences are significant and, in a business situation, critical.

What are Chatbots?

Computer programmes or devices that can 'chat' with you are known as chatbots. Some chatbots have the appearance of robots. Text is the most frequent way to communicate with chatbots, such as through messaging apps or a chat interface. A chatbot is a type of digital agent which interacts with clients via a digital interface using simple technology. Chat bots have grown in popularity in recent years since they allow firms to swiftly and easily respond to customers' fundamental questions about their products and services.

Chatbots are now one of the most widely utilised technologies for providing online customer care. They can answer questions about services, shipping, refund policies, and website troubles, among other things.

However, Chatbots aren't just for external communication. They can be quite valuable for inside corporate procedures as well.

What is Conversational AI?

When people talk about chatbots, they usually imply rules or flow-based bots. These are chatbots that have pre-written questions and answers and don't allow users to wander from the answers or themes they've been given.

Conversational AI, which is also known as conversational artificial intelligence, refers to the AI technology that powers computer conversations. That is, it refers to a variety of artificial intelligence technologies that allow computers to communicate with us "intelligently."

Conversational AI is (ideally) the polar opposite of chatbots, which are rule-based and follow a pre-determined conversational flow. Conversational AI, as opposed to chatbots, uses Natural Language Processing, Natural Language Understanding, Machine Learning, Deep Learning, and Predictive Analytics to provide a more dynamic, less limited user experience. An automatic speech recognizer (ASR), a spoken language understanding (SLU) module, a dialogue manager (DM), a natural language generator (NLG), and a text-to-speech (TTS) synthesizer are all part of the typical conversational AI architecture. The ASR receives raw audio and text signals, converts them to word hypotheses, and sends them to the SLU. The purpose of the SLU is to extract the core semantics of a given word sequence or utterance. It decodes the semantic slots in the user's speech and determines the dialogue domain and purpose. The goal of the DM is to communicate with users and help them achieve their objectives. It determines the system's behaviour after determining whether the appropriate semantic representation is filled. It uses database knowledge to find the information that the user is looking for. The dialogue agent can make more comprehensive judgments with the help of the DM, which includes dialogue state tracking and policy determination.

What is the difference and why is there confusion between them?

All these unusual combination results in conversational user interfaces that are very customizable and scalable, with evident advantages over chatbots:

Therefore it can be safely said that Conversational AI powers chatbots. But not all chatbots use conversational AI.