Chatbot
A chatbot is software that holds text conversations with people. Traditional chatbots follow fixed rules or menus; modern AI chatbots use a large language model to understand free-form questions and reply naturally.
What does Chatbot mean in practice?
The word 'chatbot' covers two very different things. A rule-based (or 'flow') chatbot follows a decision tree — buttons, keywords, and pre-written replies — and breaks the moment a customer phrases something it didn't expect. An AI chatbot, built on a large language model, understands intent in natural language, remembers earlier turns, pulls answers from your business knowledge, and can take actions like booking or sending a payment link. For Indian businesses the practical differences that matter are: does it handle Hindi, Telugu, Tamil, and code-mixed messages like Hinglish; does it work on WhatsApp and Instagram, not just a website widget; and does it actually complete tasks (book, quote, collect) rather than just chat. A chatbot only handles text — if you also need it to answer phone calls by voice, you want a broader conversational AI or AI receptionist, of which chat is one channel.
Related terms
More terms in this category
Wrapper Platform
A wrapper platform adds a client portal, branding, billing, workflows, or reporting over underlying APIs and providers rather than operating every infrastructure component itself.
AI Receptionist
An AI receptionist is software configured to handle defined front-desk conversations, such as answering, collecting details, routing, and booking.
Conversational AI
Conversational AI is software that processes text or speech, keeps context across turns, and returns an answer or performs a configured action.
See chatbot working live
Our own agent answers chat and calls at app.dvaarik.com/dvaarik-ai — or describe your business on WhatsApp and we'll show you what it looks like for you.
Login