Definition
Conversational AI
Conversational AI is technology that lets software understand and hold natural back-and-forth conversations with people in text or voice, using language models rather than fixed, scripted responses.
Modern conversational AI is built on large language models, often paired with retrieval so answers are grounded in a specific knowledge base, and with tools so the system can take actions like booking or looking something up. It is the foundation under AI sales agents, AI voice agents, and support agents.
The difference from an older chatbot is that conversational AI works from meaning and context, so it can handle unexpected phrasing and multi-turn dialogue rather than dead-ending on anything it was not scripted for.