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

The regular chatbot dynamic had been inverted: GPT-3 was prompting Vara. —Anna Wiener, New Yorker, 9 Apr. 2025

One study, published in the journal Nutrition in 2023, tested one AI chatbot’s ability to recommend allergy-safe diets. —Tribune News Service, San Diego Union-Tribune, 8 Apr. 2025

Reinforcement learning is also being used to improve the reasoning capabilities of chatbots. —Ambuj Tewari, The Conversation, 7 Apr. 2025

The idea would be for AI chatbots to take over call centers that field thousands of questions a day, including from families and students about FAFSA. —Lexi Lonas Cochran, The Hill, 6 Apr. 2025

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