Editor’s Note: This post was originally published in November 2021 and has been updated for freshness, accuracy, and comprehensiveness.

What is an AI chatbot?

AI chatbots have been a revolutionary tool for managing online customer experiences across a broad swathe of industries. Utilizing AI chatbots for service, upselling, brand engagement, and funneling customers through to point of sale has become fairly standard practice across the board.

Using these smarter Bots cuts down on telephone and email interactions and may allow better, more targeted service across all departments. Dramatically reshaping the resolution of customer issues, AI chatbots utilize Natural Language Processing (NLP) for language interpretation and conversational response.

Your AI Chatbot can now be constructed with an avatar and a name that allows your clients to feel more relaxed and taken care of. The end game is boosting conversions. Some AI chatbots have been designed well enough to guarantee that all-important transition gets instigated quickly.

Why use an AI chatbot?

AI Chatbot tech allows your customer to experience contemporary machine learning. Each interaction feeds into historical logs that teach your AI bot to respond more intuitively, request more targeted information, and further personalize interactions.

AI chatbots are also capable of understanding when your customer needs to be connected to a member of your team. The record of the interaction thus far is then available, improving clarity and saving time for all parties.

Leading your customer to that connection point, with all the pertinent information saved, is the golden ticket when it comes to chatbot interaction. Smarter, faster, and more ‘human’ interfaces are now available with AI chatbots offered widely across the market with numerous self-build and built-in features.

Naturally, not all AI chatbots are created equal. It’s important to choose the interaction and upsell tech that works best for your industry. While AI chatbots are out there taking names for your company, be sure you have the software solution that serves you best.

The pros and cons of AI chatbots

We have rolled out some great AI Chatbot options for your business conversations and conversions, and it’s easy to see where this kind of automation is going to feed into the future of your business.

However, is the move away from human contact the best way forward? We have all experienced the intense frustration of chatting online to what we thought was a person only to have a weird moment when we realize that ‘Kevin’ is an AI Chatbot who keeps throwing a response at you that is not relevant to your questions.

AI is more vulnerable to hacking, and we want to keep our customer’s information safe online, no one closes an account faster than a customer you have data shared with malicious organizations.

‘Man in the middle’ attacks pose as your company and entice customers to reveal sensitive information, and people often leave their computers open with live AI chatbot windows active.

Classic phishing scams can target your AI Chatbot more easily than person-to-person contact, and it’s going to be a nightmare to have your AI chatbot tech dealing with complaints about phishing they have, in effect, participated in.

Why use Convolo instead?

All our research into AI chatbots led us to Convolo, a new way of interacting and converting that puts the ‘human’ back in contact while still utilizing the great conversion rates that AI chatbots have been getting right.

Convolo runs on ‘speed to lead’, and it is way out front as far as customer interaction goes, getting a call into your lead in 55 seconds. Running on smart forms and instant call buttons with incredibly streamlined reporting and feedback loops, this software surprised us with its simplicity, and its ability to make every lead a hot lead for your sales team.

Convolo has a recording feature on every sales call that allows you to listen and learn from every interaction, picking up where tone moves your lead to convert to a meeting or a sale. You also access smart widgets and one-click call buttons that let you know where they were when a customer chose to proceed.

This is a massive shift in understanding where your marketing dollar is working hardest for you. We discovered that Convolo is a highly responsive person-to-person AI that has instant reporting features to keep your entire team informed in real-time about what your customer wants now.

You can use this tech today to ensure that when your customer comes looking for you, you are ready to speak to them within that golden minute.

10 best AI chatbots

To help you discover whether AI chatbots have the features you need to best serve your clients we have compiled a list of some of the best chatbots available today.

AI Chatbot platform #1 Intercom

At the top of the list is Intercom. Intercom offers AI chatbots that roll out the best conversational experience and tie in marketing in fluid ways that translate to real conversions.

Offering a streamlined build process, Intercom’s chatbot is the cleanest to create and launch, even for amateur users. Intercom has a beautiful UI and is packed with powerful features.

Intercom
AI Chatbot platform #2 Drift

Encompassing 6-billion learned conversations, Drift has a staggering data bank to work with straight out of the gate. Functioning in ways that cancel out the need for online forms. Drift is particularly smart at getting your customer over the line and engaged with the right person to move their sale along.

 Drift
AI Chatbot platform #3 Genesys DX

Genesys DX (formerly Bold360) is a great customer interface AI chatbot with a fairly high price point. Capable of initiating video learning for customers, multilingual, and featuring fully-customizable live chat widgets and buttons. This is a great choice for teams that lean heavily on media communications.

Genesys DX
AI Chatbot platform #4 Salesforce Einstein

Salesforce Einstein is an NLU technology allowing you to train chatbots made with Salesforce to automate answers and save time.

This bot is known for its great conversion rate and ability to lead customers across tracking, reporting, refunds, and returns.

Some industries report that the Salesforce Einstein chatbots are returning higher customer efforts scores (CES) than their human counterparts.

Salesforce Einstein
AI Chatbot platform #5 Inbenta

Boasting a 95% correct response rate, Inbenta is super intuitive and integrates smoothly with multiple third-party platforms.

Known for its excellent variable and entity support, Inbenta provides one of the most seamless escalations to agents on the market.

Inbenta
AI Chatbot platform #6 HubSpot Chatbot Builder

Although Hubspot is rules-based it still operates well to free up your team until they have all the information required to offer streamlined service calls.

HubSpot Chatbot is very easy to build and alter, and it provides a good level of personalization - a simple interactive choice to enhance your website data collection features.

HubSpot Chatbot Builder
AI Chatbot platform #7 Rulai

Rulai hits the mark when it comes to operational efficiency and capturing interactions across all your tiers.

Providing seamless integration across all your service points - including voice-based apps - Rulai offers a smart, frictionless, AI chatbot that is quickly climbing the tech ladder.

Rulai
AI Chatbot platform #8 Vergic

Valued for its simplicity, Vergic integrates easily and is a no-fuss deploy and develop AI tool that works. Easily handling multiple dialogs and converting leads, Vergic operates well with seamless handover for your bot/agent transfers.

Vergic
AI Chatbot platform #9 Watson Assistant

Coming to you from technology giant IBM, the Watson Assistant utilizes rich media and highly tailored interactions. This AI chatbot works fast and is known for its high containment rate.

Able to handle deviations with more intuitive alternate pathways, the Watson Assistant is a smart choice for consistent customer service.

Watson Assistant
AI Chatbot platform #10 Ada

Although Ada is coming in last on our list is by no means lacking. Used by both MailChimp and Shopify this is a no lag, no code option, for easy integration.

Shopped as a fast launch product, Ada promises 70% automation across customer interactions. This translates to streamlined revenue management and smart business sense.

Ada

The Bottom Line

Convolo is injecting warmth and safety back into your conversions. Many companies are turning to this tech to get voices back on phones - this is where trust and connection grow best, and sales teams shine.

Cutting out dropped forms and growing trust faster, Convolo instant call buttons are a great alternative or complement to even the best AI chatbots.

While you may love your AI chatbot, and lots of companies are reaping great benefits there, there is another option available that gets your sales team back into the driving seat and increases revenue fast.

Whether you decide to run the two alongside each other, or look at converting to Convlo’s software across all your platforms, either way, your customers are going to benefit from better, warmer communications.