What is an AI chatbot?
Last checked 2026-10-15
An AI chatbot is a program you talk to in everyday language. You type or speak a request ("summarise this email", "plan a 3-day trip") and it writes a reply. It works by predicting useful text from patterns it learned, so it can be fluent and helpful but also confidently wrong.
Chatbot vs agent
A chatbot answers in a conversation. An agent can also take steps for you: browse websites, run code, edit files or connect to apps. Agents can save more time but need more care and review. On this site, tasks marked Advanced usually involve agents.
Good at
- Drafting and rewriting text
- Summarising long documents
- Explaining topics at your level
- Brainstorming ideas
- Writing and explaining code
Be careful with
- Facts, numbers and quotes: check the sources
- Medical, legal and financial decisions: ask a professional
- Personal or confidential data: see Is my data safe?
Try one
Start with a free plan: ChatGPT (incl. Work & Codex) · Google Gemini · Claude (incl. Claude Code) · Microsoft Copilot · Grok · Perplexity (incl. Comet) · Meta AI. Not sure which? Take the 3-question quiz.