12 Best AI Chatbots for Business & Personal Use [2023]

AI chatbots have become a hot topic lately!

And for a great reason. 

Artificial intelligence chatbots help businesses make their automations more natural. But people can also utilize them for personal use—to make an online friend or check up on their health.

And that’s just the tip of the mountain when it comes to their capabilities and benefits. 

But, how to use chatbots, and which ones are the best choice for you?

Don’t worry—we’ll go through it all. 

In this article:

• What AI chatbot is
• What ChatGPT is
• How to use AI chatbots
• Use cases and benefits
• Reviews of the best AI chatbots
• Main features to look out for
• How to add artificial intelligence chatbot to your site?

Want to find out more about chatbots? Check out these articles:

• Chatbot Design: Best Practices & 12 Insider Tips
• Chatbot Analytics: 9 Key Metrics You Must Track
• Chatbots vs Conversational AI: Is There Any Difference?

Okay—

Let’s start from the basics and work our way up, shall we?

What is an AI chatbot?

AI chatbot is a piece of software that simulates conversations with users using natural language processing (NLP). It operates through messaging applications and uses machine learning to provide a human-like experience.

Artificial intelligence chatbots can help you increase sales, improve customer satisfaction, and save you time. You can also use them to analyze complaints, reviews, and feedback from a variety of touchpoints.

They provide human-like help without the need to forward your site’s visitor to the representative until a complex issue comes up. On top of that, AI bots understand user intent and learn with time about different ways to phrase questions to find the best answers for your clients.

But are AI chatbots the same as rule-based chatbots? 

Well—the short answer is no. 

Rule-based chatbots are programmed for specific tasks and are limited in functionality. They can only answer inquiries they were programmed for and cannot recognize between different phrasing of the query. For example, a rule-based chatbot will ask “How can I help you?” and give options for the visitor to press. But it won’t be able to answer any written questions that are outside the options it provided. 

It can be frustrating for the visitor to keep seeing this screen:

So, let’s see a comparison table of rule-based vs AI chatbots:

Rule-based chatbot	AI chatbot
– Operates on a pre-programmed basis – Only able to answer pre-written queries – Users can only use specific commands – No machine learning No intent detection	– Natural language processing technology Machine learning  – Learns from conversations overtime – Natural responses – Allows users to type their queries freely

Read more: Discover the new Tidio AI features and to use them to grow your business.

You’ve also probably heard of an AI called ChatGPT, haven’t you?

Let’s quickly talk about that one.

What is ChatGPT?

In simple words, ChatGPT is an artificial intelligence chatbot made by OpenAI, improved from the previous (OpenAI GPT-3.5) version, and launched in November 2022. It’s a language model with reinforcement learning techniques. 

This chatbot AI can simulate detailed responses and greatly articulate answers. It interacts with users in a conversational way, and it’s able to answer follow-up questions thanks to its dialog format. It can also reject inappropriate requests, which is a great improvement from some of the other conversational AI available online.

But, keep in mind that this online artificial intelligence chatbot is still in the prototype phase, so could be slow and not factually accurate at times. 

Read more: Check out this tutorial to learn more about ChatGPT and how to use it. Or watch this video explaining it in a step-by-step guide:

We won’t be focusing on this new OpenAI creation. 

Instead, let’s find out what you can use AI chatbot platforms for.

How to use AI chatbots for your business?

An AI chatbot for websites works on set algorithms and chats naturally with your site visitors. So, some of the most common uses for them include answering common questions, engaging customers, and marketing your products. 

Let’s see some real-life examples of them.

• FAQs answers 

One of the most common uses for intelligent chatbots is answering common questions. These include your pricing, opening hours, order status, and much more. It takes the weight off your support agents’ shoulders, decreases the wait time, and improves satisfaction. What’s not to love about it?

Here’s how Cheerble chose to use their chatbot for customer service and to answer customers’ frequently asked questions:

• Customer engagement

You can also use AI chatbots to engage with your visitors right when they get to your ecommerce store—send them a simple welcome message and ask if they need any support. There might be something specific they’re looking for, and reaching out can push them to purchase from you quicker. They’ll also appreciate the proactive communication!

Check out how Story Bikes does this on their site: 

• Marketing 

AI chatbots can also assist your marketing team. They can show campaigns and promotions of your products to your shoppers during the conversation flow. This includes personalized recommendations, offering discounts for first-time visitors, and suggesting the perfect pairings to the products in the client’s basket.

You can watch this video to see how LEGO used AI chatbots for marketing and get some inspiration:

Read more: Check out some of the best chatbot examples. Also, look through the real-life use cases of chatbots to get the most out of this technology.

Now—

What are the advantages of AI chatbots?

Benefits of artificial intelligence chatbots online

It’s well-known that AI bots can help your human agents with helpdesk queries. They can also increase your sales, improve shoppers’ satisfaction with your brand, and increase engagement on your website. Sounds great, doesn’t it?

Okay—here are some research-proven benefits of AI chatbots:

• Increased sales

AI chatbot solutions can recommend products, as well as upsell and cross-sell during their conversation with a client. In fact, research shows that chatbots increase a company’s sales by an average of 67%. This boost could grow your revenue exponentially in the long run, don’t you think? 

• Improved communication 

The fact is that more than 35% of consumers want companies to use chatbots. This is because they improve communication between the brand and the customer to deliver a better shopping experience. How? Well, AI bots are available to the clients 24/7, chat in a natural manner, and engage your website visitors in a number of ways. 

• Personalized shopping experience provided

Let’s start by saying that about 80% of the time, customers spend more when a brand offers a personalized shopping experience. Moreover, about 49% of shoppers say that they will likely buy from the retailer repeatedly if a company offers personalized recommendations.

Read more: Check out this case study and learn how a leather wallet company recreated in-store customer experience online and boosted sales with smart chatbots.

• Improved engagement 

Our study on the importance of chatbot personality found that people perceive brands that use chatbots with “quick-witted” replies more positively than those who use chatbots with robotic answers. AI chatbots provide better engagement and are more fun to chat to.

• Proactive customer service provided

Studies show that around 68% of consumers view brands that offer proactive customer service more favorably than those that don’t proactively reach out to clients. AI support chatbot can reach out to your shoppers on your website and other communication channels to make sure your brand stays in touch with clients.

Now—let’s look at the 12 best artificial intelligence chatbots available on the market, shall we?

Best AI chatbots available online

You can add your AI bot to your website, CRM, or to send SMS messages. Most chatbots are text-based, but some vendors offer voice recognition, so you can serve clients through recorded messages. 

Okay—let’s get started.

Here’s a comparison table of the 12 top AI chatbot software you can use for your website and messaging platforms:

Name of the AI chatbot	Ratings ⭐️	Free plan/trial	Best for
Tidio	4.8/5 (494 ratings)	✅ Plan & Trial	Small to medium businesses
Drift	4.4/5 (530 ratings)	✅ Plan	B2B companies
Ada	4.6/5 (108 ratings)	❌	International companies
DialogFlow	4.3/5 (42 ratings)	✅ Trial	Businesses operating with Google Cloud
Wati	4.6/5 (76 ratings)	✅ Trail	WhatsApp customer service
Mobile Monkey	4.9/5 (119 ratings)	✅ Plan	Customer service on social media
Paradox	4.9/5 (21 ratings)	❌	Recruitment
Infeedo	4.7/5 (50 ratings)	❌	Collecting employee feedback
Medwhat	No ratings	✅ Plan	Medical checks
Replica	4.6/5 (177.6k ratings)	✅ Plan	Conversation
Elomia	4.9/5 (36 ratings)	✅ Trial	Mental health
Kasisto	N/A	❌	Finance AI chatbot

So—

Let’s learn more about each of these AI chatbot providers in detailed reviews.

1. Tidio

Rating: 4.7/5 (1,315+ ratings)

Best for: ecommerce businesses

Tidio provides a conversational AI chatbot that uses deep learning to help you level up your customer support and generate more sales. It is easy to use, so you can create your ecommerce AI chatbot just the way you want. You can also use a visual builder interface to see how it grows.

Your bot will use NLP technology to support your shoppers better and engage with them more efficiently. And you’ll be available for your customers 24/7, so you won’t miss out on any sales opportunities.

But don’t take our word for it. Try our system for yourself free of charge and check out our reviews to see if we deserve this spot on the list.

Main features:

• Natural Language Processing (NLP) chatbots 
• Conversation bot templates available
• Intuitive drag-and-drop builder
• Visual builder interface
• Variety of integrations (MailChimp, Zapier, etc.)
• 16 different triggers for bots

Pricing:

• Free plan available
• Communicator ($19/mo/operator)
• Chatbots ($39/mo)
• Tidio+ (from $289/mo)

Read more: Learn how to automate conversations with Tidio AI Response Bots.

2. Drift

Rating: 4.4/5 (530 ratings)

Best for: B2B companies

Drift AI-powered chatbots support B2B companies to start the conversation with other businesses and answer questions. These bots provide a personalized user experience and real-time engagement for buyers.

You can collect shoppers’ data to learn more about their behavior and connect with target buyers better. This sales AI chatbot can also schedule meetings with potential clients and let you reach the decision makers quicker. 

Pros:

• Great customer support
• Integrates with other tools, like Google Analytics, MailChimp, Zapier, etc.
• Meeting scheduling options

Cons:

• Reporting feature difficult to use 
• Poor quality of videos sent via the app
• Limited filters to separate chats 

Pricing:

• Free plan available 
• Premium (from $2,500/mo)
• Advance and Enterprise plans → contact sales for pricing

3. Ada

Rating: 4.6/5 (108 ratings)

Best for: international businesses

Ada is a virtual agent that helps you create a personalized and automated customer experience using one of the best AI software. It provides an easy-to-use chatbot builder and ensures a good user engagement in multiple languages.

The “Questions” tab provides real-life scenarios and how the bot handles support inquiries, it hasn’t been trained for. If you want your conversational AI chatbot to perform some more robust functions, the Ada team is there to support you with that. 

Pros:

• Knowledge base available 
• Fully customizable
• Efficient and user-friendly back-end interface

Cons:

• Takes time to create good chatbots
• Poor reporting
• Tricky to understand pricing for features

Pricing:

• Custom pricing for businesses

4. DialogFlow

Rating: 4.3/5 (42 ratings)

Best for: businesses operating with Google Cloud

This is an open-source AI chatbot developed by Google that can be integrated with multiple channels, such as websites, Android and iOS mobile applications, and Facebook Messenger. The visual flow builder reduces the time you need to spend on the development of the flow of the dialog because you see the changes in real time.

Google DialogFlow offers the latest BERT-based natural language understanding (NLU) as part of the AI chatbot framework. This can help you provide more accurate and efficient support for customers in more complex cases.

Pros:

• 30+ languages and variants supported
• Large community support
• Works with voice interface platforms, like Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa, etc.

Cons:

• No live agent to assist in setting up the chatbot
• Difficult to customize
• Some reviewers say that the accuracy of (NLP) Natural Language Processing needs improvement 

Pricing:

• 90-day free trial
• Priced monthly based on the edition and the number of requests made

5. Wati

Rating: 4.6/5 (76 ratings)

Best for: companies operating on WhatsApp for customer service.

WATI is a WhatsApp AI chatbot application for customer communication through the platform. It is a client support tool that is built on WhatsApp API. It can aid your business carry out more personalized service on an easy-to-use platform.

You can also record and send videos through WhatsApp whenever you need a visual aid to help with customer interactions and optimize the experience. 

Pros:

• Official integration with WhatsApp
• Integrations with Google Sheets, Shopify, Zapier, etc.
• A shared inbox for all messages from customers

Cons:

• Limited assistance for the setup
• Not able to duplicate flows
• Not intuitive layout design

Pricing:

• Free trial available
• Standard: $49/mo
• Professional: $98/mo 

6. Mobile Monkey

Rating: 4.9/5 (119 ratings)

Best for: social media communication.

This Facebook AI chatbot works on more than just Messenger. It provides an omnichannel experience across webchat, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Facebook. So you can make your customer service available wherever your clients want it. 

MobileMonkey allows your e-commerce business to manage all your inbound and outbound customer communication in a single place. It can also support you in scaling your business with a variety of automations and third-party integrations.

Pros:

• Seamless integration with Facebook and Instagram
• Ready-to-use templates for Messenger and Instagram chatbots
• Easy to use and set up

Cons:

• No advanced analytics
• Onboarding needs improvement
• No use of conditions for chatbots available

Pricing:

• Free AI chatbot available 
• InstaChimp Platinum: $19/mo
• MobileMonkey Startup Edition: $119.mo

7. Paradox

Rating: 4.9/5 (21 ratings)

Best for: recruiters with a large number of applications to go through.

Paradox is a recruitment app providing AI-powered chatbots to support global customers with their hiring needs. It streamlines workflows, such as screening resumes, scheduling interviews, and more. It also answers candidates’ questions and manages onboarding communications.

Because of the built-in conversational AI, communication with potential employees is more human-like and efficient.

Pros:

• Automated scheduling of interviews and reminders
• Real-time candidate screening
• Q&A for candidates available

Cons:

• User interface is not intuitive
• Unable to detect duplicate candidates
• More training needed for the product

Pricing:

• Custom pricing for businesses

8. Infeedo

Rating: 4.7/5 (50 ratings)

Best for: companies with many remote employees.

Infeedo is one of the most advanced AI chatbots to collect employee feedback for companies that offer remote work. This virtual assistant asks employees about their work-life and detects those who are disengaged, unhappy, or are about to leave.

It then creates reports with actionable insights for HR to improve employee engagement and well-being. It can also aid you in predicting attrition and measuring company culture in real-time with a personalized reach out to employees.

Pros:

• Intuitive dashboard analytics
• Anonymous chats available for sharing deeper insights from employees
• Personalized questions and elements for the organization

Cons:

• No mobile app available
• More actionable inputs in reports and analysis needed
• Difficult to check group-level insights

Pricing:

• Contact sales for pricing

9. Kasisto

Rating: N/A

Best for: finance businesses.

KAI delivers real-time customer service using deep conversational AI and financial expertise to meet your client’s needs. It can analyze account activity and create insights. This can assist financial services to provide the right recommendations and expand your FAQ pages with commonly asked questions.

This AI chatbot for finance businesses serves as a virtual assistant for your banking customers and improves engagement on a variety of platforms. It also offers toolsets for data collection and analysis. You can use the gathered information for training your bots, testing them, and deploying new AI chatbots in the future that match user intents better.

Pros:

• Intent builder with segments, entities, and responses
• Artificial intelligence chatbot training 
• Natural language Understanding technology

Cons:

• Users report bugs in the system

Pricing:

• Contact sales for pricing

Those were the top AI chatbots for your business needs. But what about the ones for personal use? Let’s check them out!

10. Medwhat

Rating: no ratings available 

Best for: virtual medical assistance for non-emergency cases.

This is one of the best AI chatbot apps for personal medical assistance. Medwhat can provide medical consulting and decrease human error to improve the health conditions of the users. 

This AI chatbot healthcare has a team of doctors, data scientists, and medical researchers behind its origins. It can provide the patient with relevant information based on their health records to reduce the human factor.

Pros:

• Helps doctors & nurses
• Provides medical consultations 24/7
• Learns over time about more medication available and provides more accurate advice

Cons:

• Danger of people treating this bot as a replacement for doctors
• Can provide wrong information at the start

Pricing:

• Free to use

11. Replika

Rating: 4.6/5 (177.6K ratings)

Best for: people who need a companion to talk to.

Have you ever wanted to chat with someone, but didn’t have the right person to write to? That’s what this chatbot is for. Replika is a human-like companion for anyone who wants to have someone to chat to.

You can create your avatar the way you want and give it any personality that fits your needs. This artificial intelligence chatbot is designed to help you express yourself. It also gives you space where you can safely share your thoughts, feelings, and beliefs.

Pros:

• Connects with Facebook and Twitter 
• Choice of personality right from the start
• Obtains human traits, such as caring, confident, adventurous, etc. 

Cons:

• You need to spend a lot of time teaching the software about yourself
• Many irrelevant responses at the beginning 
• Romantic relationship setting can turn on even when in friendship mode

Pricing:

• Free version available
• Pro version: $4.99/mo

12. Elomia

Rating: 4.9/5 (36 ratings)

Best for: mental health assistance

Elomia is one of the most advanced AI chatbots you can chat to when you need help talking through some problems. It is a virtual therapist designed to support people with anxiety, depression, relationship issues, low self-esteem, loneliness, and other mental health problems. 

You can also use this online AI chatbot app to get recommendations for exercises to further assist you in improving your mental health and emotional well-being.

Pros:

• Anonymous
• Recommendations for mental health and well-being exercises available
• Identifies the main psychological problems and offers support

Cons:

• Danger of using it as a substitute for medical treatment

Pricing:

• Free 3-day trial
• $8.99/mo

Main features of AI chatbots to look out for

When choosing the AI chatbot software for your business, make sure it offers the latest technology, good onboarding support, and an extensive functionality. And this will vary depending on your company as some need more support with customer service, and other brands want to promote their products on autopilot. 

However, some chatbot AI features are important for every business, so you should keep an eye on them.

• Machine learning technology

Ensure that the AI chatting bot you choose offers machine learning technology. It helps the chatbot learn from previous conversations and improve its responses. 

• Natural language processing (NLP)

Natural language processing, understanding, and generation help the conversation with users feel more human-like. It can improve the shopper’s experience on your site and bring you more loyal clients in the long run.

• Good customer support

When you come across any issues with the software, you’ll want to be able to contact the support team for help. So, before setting up software, make sure to check the current user reviews. It’s the best place to find out what’s the quality of service of the platform.

• Reports and analytics

To improve your chatbot, you need to see how it’s performing. Reports and analytics will help you with that. These dashboards can show you which areas are performing well and which ones need improvements for a better shopping experience. 

• End of chat surveys

This is one of the best ways to collect feedback. Straight after the conversation, the AI-powered chatbot can ask the visitor to rate their satisfaction with customer service and your brand. You can also ask them how likely they are to recommend your company to their friends and family.

Okay—

We know everything that relates to chatbot AI right now. It’s time to add one to your website!

How to add AI chatbots to your website?

Building an AI chatbot starts with choosing your preferred software. Then, you can follow a few simple steps and your first artificial intelligence chatbot online should be ready within 5 to 10 minutes. 

We’ll be using Tidio to demonstrate this process step by step.

1. Log in to the AI chatbot platform of your choice

2. Customize the chat widget and the welcome message to your customers

3. To build AI chatbots, go to the Chatbots tab and scroll down to the templates

4. Choose the AI Responder template and click Use Template

5. Edit the trigger, condition, and actions to your needs

6. Repeat for a variety of user intents

Read more: Learn in more details how to create a chatbot for your website in 8 easy steps. Also, discover how to train your chatbot with tips and a step-by-step guide.

Key takeaway

So, let’s do a quick recap of all we’ve learned today,

AI chatbots are computer software that mirrors human interactions over text and voice messages. They use natural language processing (NLP) and machine learning to simulate conversations with the users. 

Some of the benefits include boosting sales, increasing engagement, and improving the experience for your customers. And you can use AI conversational chatbots for FAQ, marketing, sales, and general customer service.
On the other hand, you can also use AI chatbots online for personal use. They help people do regular health checks, provide mental health exercises, and enable users to just make a friend.

Some of the top AI chatbot companies are:

1. Tidio
2. Drift
3. Ada
4. DialogFlow
5. Wati
6. Mobile Monkey
7. Paradox
8. Infeedo
9. Kasisto
10. MedWhat
11. Replica
12. Elomia

You should ensure that the provider you choose offers machine learning bots, NLP technology, good customer support, and in-chat surveys. 

Now, passing the buck to you. 

Just remember to make use of the free trials and free plans provided to make sure the platform matches all your needs. 

AI chatbot FAQ