Chatbot or AI assistant: the difference in plain language

What a chatbot is

The classic chatbot is a decision tree: 'Press 1 for opening hours, 2 for an appointment.' The slightly smarter variant recognises keywords ('opening hours', 'return') and shows the answer an employee attached to them beforehand. Both work fine as long as the question fits exactly. If the customer asks differently, with a typo, in half a sentence or with two questions at once, you get 'I do not understand' or the wrong answer.

Chatbots are cheap, quick to set up and predictable: they never say anything you did not put in. That is also their limit.

What an AI assistant is

An AI assistant uses a language model, the same kind of technology as the well-known AI services, but set up around your business. It reads the question the way an employee would, even when it is badly phrased, and finds the answer in the knowledge you supplied: your website, your terms, your product information, your planning. It can ask follow-up questions, assess a photo, read a document and carry out tasks through integrations: book an appointment, prepare a call-back request, create a draft order.

The flip side: a language model can say something convincing that is not true. That is why a good assistant gets a scoped knowledge source, a rule to refer to a person when in doubt and a fixed sentence in which it says it is an assistant.

Five differences side by side

If you want to judge a quote, look at these five points:

• Understanding or recognising. A chatbot recognises keywords; an assistant understands the question, in other words, with typos or in another language.
• Knowledge source. A chatbot only answers with pre-entered answers; an assistant searches your documents, website and systems and formulates the answer itself.
• Carrying out tasks. A chatbot shows a link to the appointment form; an assistant books the appointment in your calendar and confirms it.
• Photos and documents. A chatbot cannot do anything with them; an assistant reads a damage photo, a packing slip or an order list.
• When in doubt. A chatbot says 'I do not understand'; an assistant asks a follow-up question, and if it really does not know, it refers to a person with the context attached.

When a chatbot is enough

When your questions are predictable and limited and you mainly want visitors to reach the right page quickly: opening hours, address, return policy, a link to the contact form. When you have the time to keep the answers up to date yourself. And when a wrong answer does little harm. Then a chatbot for a few tens of euros a month is a fine choice, and an assistant is overkill.

When you need an assistant

As soon as customers ask questions in their own words about your products or services, want to arrange something (an appointment, an order, a status) or send photos. As soon as questions arrive outside office hours and you want a usable answer then, not a menu. And as soon as the answer has to come from your own systems: is it in stock, is the car ready, when is the engineer coming. Then the chatbot is the cheap solution nobody uses, and the assistant is the investment that pays for itself.

What it costs

Off-the-shelf chatbot software rents from a few tens to a few hundred euros per month. A custom assistant that knows your business and talks to your systems runs in the Dutch market from roughly €2,500 to €40,000 one-off, depending on knowledge, integrations and whether it has to assess photos; the article on what an AI chatbot costs goes into that in more depth. At the blue thing you get a fixed price for a first, clearly scoped version after a free introductory call. Maintenance and updates are optional afterwards from €195 per month, cancellable monthly.

Not sure which of the two you need? The Work Scan (€495 excluding VAT) maps out which questions and tasks recur at your company and what an assistant takes over. If you then have us build it, that amount is credited in full.