Are Chatbots and Virtual Assistants Same

1
Are Chatbots and Virtual assistants the same?
Conversational AI has seen an exponential rise in
popularity in the last decade and has become
main stream over the past two years. Enterprise
adoption of Conversational AI is accelerating.
Businesses are investing millions of dollars for
conversational AI applications with massive
expectations to improve customer experience and
operational efficiencies.
Gartner says By 2022, 70 of white-collar
workers will interact with conversational
platforms on a daily basis. Chatbots and
Virtual Assistants are leveraging AI technologies
to provide innovative and efficient solutions
benefiting customers, employees, and partners. In
this scenario, it is crucial to understand the
fundamental differences between a Chatbot and a
more sophisticated solution like a Virtual
assistant. Businesses and professionals who are
planning or implementing a conversational AI
solution should know this difference to reap
benefits out of these technologies. Without such
proper understanding, there will be a high
chance of failure to meet the expectations. Chatb
ot A basic AI Chatbot enables the user to ask
questions and is programmed to respond with
relevant answers from the knowledge base.
Chabot, aka FAQ chatbot, uses NLP (Natural
Language Processing) to identify the key-words
of the users question and responds with
programmed answers accordingly. It works
similarly to a search engine. Since chatbots are
keyword-based, if the user asks the same
question differently, the chatbot will not be
able to respond though equipped with the
required knowledge. Depending on how many ways
the same question can be constructed, the
failure rate can be high with chatbots. Intellige
nt Virtual Assistants (IVA) Whereas an
Intelligent virtual assistant understands the
meaning and intent of the user query using NLP
and NLU technologies and generates a dynamic
response. Intent understanding enables virtual
assistants to hold conversations longer with the
user. Virtual assistants also can understand the
context and provide more personalized and
relevant answers.
2
Are Chatbots and Virtual assistants the same?

• Key differences between a chatbot and virtual
  assistant
• Language Understanding Chatbots can identify
  the key-words but cannot understand the
  intention of the user. Conversational AI Platform
  provide the relevant answers based on those
  key-words. On the other hand, Virtual assistants
  can identify the intent, understand the emotion,
  and analyze the intricacies of the natural
  language. Virtual assistants are more adaptable
  and offer personalized and human-like
  interactions with the user.
• Context Handling When we interact with others,
  the context of our intentions or actions plays a
  significant role in the interaction. Our
  understanding of language, emotions, and social
  cues may differ depending on where, how, and
  when we encounter them. Chatbots are not capable
  of understanding the context. Virtual assistants,
  also known as contextual assistants, consider
  the context while generating the response,
  meaning that they are capable of understanding
  and responding to different and unexpected user
  inputs. Context handling enables the virtual
  assistant to provide more personalized and
  relevant responses to the user. They can
  gracefully handle the interaction when the user
  switches from the expected conversation path.
• Learning and Improvements Chatbots are
  programmed with static responses. In contrast,
  virtual assistants are more adaptive in nature
  and can learn from past interactions, thereby
  improving the quality of future interactions.
  This makes virtual assistants less likely to fail
  when trained with large amounts of data over a
  period.
• Perform Tasks Chatbots are generally used as
  conversational interfaces for simple FAQs and
  cannot perform tasks. Virtual assistants can
  assist the user in performing defined tasks, like
  checking order status, raising a service ticket,
  scheduling an appointment, sending notifications,
  and so on.
• To Summarize Chatbots or FAQ Chatbots are the
  simplest and most common type. BOT Building
  Platform allow the users to ask questions and
  provide the scripted answers based on the simple
  key-word search and set of rules. They are prone
  to make mistakes when the user input is
  unexpected or deviates from the expected
  conversation path. Virtual Assistants, aka
  contextual assistants, are more intelligent and
  context-based. They can understand the users
  intent, emotion, and context and provide
  personalized and dynamic responses. They can
  handle unexpected user inputs and perform tasks.
  Virtual Assistants, when implemented
  successfully, enables businesses to offer great
  conversational experiences with customers,
  employees, and partners.
• Reach out to me at info_at_smartbots.ai for any
  queries related to Conversational AI. Do you
  want to build a Virtual Assistant for your
  enterprise?
• Are you struggling to enter into the world of
  Conversational AI? Do you want to ride the wave
  of Digital Transformation?
• We are here to help. Check us out at SmartBots