All consumers expect fast and personalized support to their demands, no matter what channel they choose to start a dialogue with a brand. No wonder, with more conversations happening and more and more platforms, these brands face difficulties in offering reliable experiences at scale. That is why many of them are turning to conversational AI & AI that more than an artificial intelligence tool, represents a whole comprehensive customer service strategy, intelligently.
But after all, what is conversational AI? With so many new terms and tools emerging today, thanks to the AI revolution started in recent years, it is not always clear what is what, and above that, what are the functionalities and possibilities of each tool. In the case of conversational AI, we are talking about the technology usually known to be behind interactions between customers and brands, but that look like human, even if carried out by an AI. It is used in the context of providing smarter and faster support by phone, WhatsApp, chat and other digital channels.
Understanding how conversational AI works is critical to unlocking its full potential.At its core, conversational AI strategy uses advanced models to analyze natural language, interpret customer intent, and automate or enhance interactions across multiple channels.
AI has the autonomy to serve a customer who initiates a dialogue, but can also direct the conversation to a human agent, if a human touch is needed in the conversation, above all preserving the context for the human agent.
This agent, in addition to receiving the history with important points of the conversation, can analyze the situation according to the customer sentiment thermometer, already evaluated by AI, and know what to focus on, following the recommendations of the AI.
This process enables companies to deliver efficient, connected experiences at scale, while making every interaction smarter, regardless of channel or complexity of the customer question.
Conversational AI versus chatbot
While exploring digital support solutions, many people wonder about the difference between conversational AI and chatbot technology.Although these terms are sometimes used interchangeably, they represent very different levels of capability and value.
Traditional chatbots operate with a simple, predictive intent.They rely primarily on predefined content and decision trees when offering ready-made answers to predictable questions.This makes them suitable for basic or repetitive use cases, such as answering frequently asked questions on a website, where the conversation does not need to adapt or evolve. Their ability to simulate human conversations is limited as they cannot generate language that feels natural or understand context outside of a fixed set of scenarios.
Conversational AI, on the other hand, is context-sensitive.It uses machine learning and natural language processing to understand intent, remember previous interactions, and even learn and improve over time. Instead of just following a predefined roadmap, conversational AI can adjust responses based on history, sentiment, and conversation flow, making interactions feel much more natural and intuitive.It can also orchestrate data from outside of your conversations, such as CRM, OSS/BSS, web traffic history, and more. This is the 360-degree view that most companies struggle to produce.
These systems can understand intent, solve context, and even reason through multi-step interactions, which makes them ideal for more complex customer journeys. Another important difference is the ability to understand and remember context. While chatbots offer only simple understanding and have little reasoning ability, conversational AI can track conversation history, leverage subject matter experience, and customize responses based on context.
The best conversational AI platforms offer real flexibility for customizing workflows, channels, and integrations to meet business needs. Additionally, they enable quick and easy setup and rapid expansion to get new automations or channels up and running in weeks, not months.
As your business grows or your support operations become more complex, your conversational AI platform must scale seamlessly.Search for enterprise-ready infrastructure that supports high volumes of interactions, global teams, and omnichannel communications without compromising performance or reliability.Scaleability ensures your platform remains a solid foundation for innovation in the future.
*Content adapted by Jose Eduardo Ferreira, Regional Vice President of Sales for Latin America at Twilio, from the original material “What is conversational AI? Twilio's strategy for smarter support“, written by Ravleen Kaur of Twilio.
