The basics
What is a chatbot?
In one line
A program you talk to by typing.
A chatbot is any program you interact with by typing back and forth, like a text conversation. The old ones (think clunky “customer support” bots) followed fixed scripts. The new ones are powered by AI, so they actually understand what you mean and answer naturally. When people say “I used the AI,” they usually mean they talked to a chatbot.
Where this comes up