chatbot

noun

chat·​bot ˈchat-ˌbät 

plural chatbots

: a bot (see bot entry 1 sense 3) that is designed to converse with human beings

Chatbots … have been around for years, mostly to answer generic questions over the phone or on a website.

—Dalvin Brown

The challenge is to create a chatbot that can converse coherently and engagingly with humans on popular topics for 20 minutes.

—Marc Saltzman

Examples of chatbot in a Sentence

Recent Examples on the Web

And more than one lawsuit has accused AI chatbots of encouraging people to commit suicide. —Sharon Bernstein, Sacbee.com, 1 Apr. 2026

The chatbot has faced accusations of generating non-consensual intimate imagery after being prompted by users. —Miguel Torres, AZCentral.com, 1 Apr. 2026

Investors fear soaring energy prices will hit data center plans and that its AI chatbot is losing ground to rivals. —Tom Chivers, semafor.com, 1 Apr. 2026

In recent months, that approach has put the Pentagon at odds with Anthropic, the Silicon Valley company behind Claude, the only AI chatbot that is currently configured to operate on the Maven Smart System. —Cybele Mayes-Osterman, USA Today, 1 Apr. 2026

Word History

Etymology

chat entry 1 + bot entry 1

First Known Use

1994, in the meaning defined above

Kids Definition

chatbot

noun

chat·​bot ˈchat-ˌbät 

: a bot that is designed to converse with human beings