Chatbot / Virtual Agent

A chatbot is an application that simulates conversation with users through text or voice, typically to answer questions, guide navigation, or complete transactions. Traditional chatbots follow scripted decision trees or intent-classification models that match user inputs to predefined responses. A virtual agent is a more capable variant — usually powered by a large language model — that can handle open-ended queries, maintain conversational context across turns, and integrate with back-end systems to retrieve data or trigger actions in real time.

In commerce, chatbots and virtual agents serve as the primary interface for scalable customer engagement: handling order status inquiries, product recommendations, return initiations, and FAQ resolution without routing every interaction to a human agent. Modern LLM-based virtual agents dramatically extend this capability, understanding nuanced requests, switching topics gracefully, and personalizing responses based on customer history. For businesses, the key distinctions to evaluate are the system's ability to handle fallback gracefully, its integration depth with order management and CRM systems, and the ease with which conversation flows can be updated as products and policies change.