AI Chatbots: Key Benefits and Challenges for Businesses

Chatbots have the potential to become a relevant tool for businesses, revolutionizing customer interactions, automating repetitive tasks, and improving overall engagement, powered by Artificial Intelligence and Natural Language Processing. Existing research highlights their deployment across industries, mostly in optimistic terms. This paper offers a thorough examination of chatbot integration, looking at both its advantages and disadvantages. We evaluate the changing role of chatbots in business using a qualitative research methodology that includes case studies, secondary data analysis, and web scraping of Fortune Global 100 businesses. Our research shows that although chatbots increase productivity, enhance customer loyalty, and support data-driven decision-making, they also have drawbacks, such as trouble answering complicated questions, privacy issues, and moral dilemmas. Furthermore, our study reveals sectoral differences in chatbot adoption, with manufacturing and commodities being cautious while sectors like finance and retail are setting the standard. The study also looks at chatbots’ use in crisis management, demonstrating how well they work in digital security and humanitarian assistance. Notwithstanding current constraints, chatbot capabilities can be improved by ongoing advancements in natural language processing (NLP) and AI ethics. This study offers important insights into optimising chatbot adoption and striking a balance between automation and human oversight to guarantee dependable, transparent, and adaptable AI systems by highlighting best practices and areas for improvement.