Conversational AI

What is Conversational AI?

Conversational AI is the field of technology that lets software understand human language and hold a natural, back-and-forth conversation with a person.

Conversational AI is the broad field of technology that lets software understand human language and respond in a natural, back-and-forth way. It combines natural language processing (NLP) to interpret what a person means, large language models to generate fluent replies, and dialog management to track context across a conversation. A free AI chatbot on a website is one everyday example: the visitor types a question in plain language, and the system answers as if a knowledgeable colleague were on the other side. Unlike a rigid menu of buttons, conversational AI handles rephrasing, follow-up questions, and typos. For a small business, the practical payoff is that customers get instant answers in their own words — at any hour — while the system quietly captures leads and hands tricky cases to a human. Modern voice assistants, support widgets, and messaging bots are all built on conversational AI.

For more on this, see BSG's Voice Bot vs. Chatbot: Selecting the Ideal Conversational AI for Your Business.

Related terms

• Natural Language Processing
• Large Language Model
• Generative AI

Related BSG products

• AI Support Assistant
• Conversational AI Voice