How Many Types Of Chatbots Are There?

According to Mordor Intelligence, the chatbot market is set to reach 5.64 billion dollars in 2023 and it is expected to grow at a CAGR of 24.32%, making this market worth 16.74 billion dollars by 2028.

That being said, Chatbots are not going anywhere. They have proved to be a cost-effective solution for many companies and will continue to do so. Every company is unique with a different set of needs, there is no one-size-fits-all in these businesses.

This gave rise to the creation of different types of chatbots which is what we are going to discuss in this blog. We will start our journey by explaining what a chatbot is and then head to talk about its types.

If this is what you are looking for, then stay with us.

What is a Chatbot?

Chatbots are robots which are made to talk and respond to human users. They are mainly used to automate the tasks and provide efficiency.

What are the different types of chatbots?

There are many types of chatbots which are present in recent times. It is difficult to categorize them according to their functionality, entities and other things. The lines which help in differentiating between them are sometimes blurred out. It makes it difficult to categorise chatbots.

To make things easier to understand, we have divided all this into 2 categories. While there's yet to be a definitive answer to how many types of chatbots exist.

Here's a breakdown of the main categories and their variations:

Based on Functionality

Functionality, when we talk about this word in IT, it means how well a computer’s capacity and abilities are working. In layman’s language, it means how well it is doing a job it is meant to do.

Based on Functionality, there are three types of chatbots. As named down below:

• Task-oriented chatbots:

These chatbots are designed to ensure they complete the task effectively and efficiently. The Task-oriented chatbots can be further categorised into three parts:

• Rule-based chatbots:

Rule-based chatbots work like following a set script. They stick to a specific set of instructions to answer what users ask. They're great for handling tasks that are easy to predict and follow a clear structure. Imagine a rule-based chatbot in a banking app – it might lead you through a series of questions to solve a problem or give you info about your account.

Rule-based chatbots work in a similar manner that a salesperson does on a call, it acts according to a script or instructions. Hence, these are effective and efficient in handling tasks which is easy and repetitive or tasks which are time-consuming and monotonous.

For example, it is great for a bank to use rule-based chatbots for most of its account-related queries whose steps would be the same for both humans and a bot.

• AI-powered chatbots:

AI stands for Artificial Intelligence, these chatbots work with the help of NLP (Natural Language Processor) and various Machine Learning programs.

So what do NLP and ML do? They can learn from the interactions and conversations done with the user and on the user’s terms. The more user interacts with them, more better and adaptive their text becomes.

These chatbots are popular in customer service as a customer support tool that will solve simple queries and send complex ones to humans.

• Hybrid chatbots

Hybrid chatbots are the most popular ones as they provide the best of both worlds. By this, we mean that it has the abilities of both AI and Rule-based chatbots.

It is great for everyday tasks and even for complex ones as a chatbot can handle the trickier questions with the help of Machine learning. It helps execute a well-structured plan for monotonous tasks and complex tasks that can be handled by the AI aspect of the chatbot.

Conversational chatbots:

Conversational chatbots are named according to their functionality and ability to talk to their human counterparts. They are made in such a way that they mimic the naturally engaging and empathetic side of humans. They are a popular choice for making personalised chatbots which can be customised as per user liking.

These chatbots have a natural and engaging way of talking to the user. Hence, They are often used for entertainment or companionship. Two subcategories include:

• Open-domain chatbots

An open-domain chatbot is like a good friend with whom you can talk about anything and everything without any problems. They don’t have a problem navigating a variety of things and topics.

These chatbots have the bandwidth to talk and take orders on a lot of things like talking about weather to how to fix lights they can give answers or replies to most things.

The closest example of this would be Google Duplex. It can make restaurant reservations or schedule appointments all on its own by conversing with humans naturally.

• Persona-based chatbots

If we look into the definition of persona, we will find that it is a word which shows the aspect of someone that is perceived or presented by others, or we can say the expectation of how a certain character will react in a situation or in general.

Persona chatbots are designed or created to mimic or copy a specific character or personality. They are made for a specific purpose like for role-playing and storytelling.

One of the most remarkable features of this chatbot is consistency. These chatbots are very consistent with their assigned characters. If they are assigned a character and you ask them a question, the answer that you will receive is going to reflect the speech and behaviour of that character.

Creative chatbots

If all the Chatbots were students in a class, then these chatbots would be the creative ones in the class. The “Think out of the Box” students. These bots have unique ways of interacting with generating different types of content in different forms like text, image

There are subcategories of creative chatbots include:

• Generative AI chatbots

Generative AI Chatbots are one of the most popular categories in the AI industry. A really good example of this would be ChatGPT.

These chatbots can generate creative and open-ended responses. Not only this, they can produce a wide range of content like poems, stories, riddles and other things.

All this is possible with the help of LLM models, LLM stands for Large Language Model. These models are trained on huge, even enormous amounts of data and information. These are fundamentally a subset of machine learning, which helps them create creative and complex responses as output.

• Experimental chatbots

Experimental chatbots are made to explore the limits and capabilities of their functionality. These experimental chatbots are used in interactive gaming, stimulation, or any other creative, out-of-the-box approach that will help to pave new ways in new fields.

They are like a playground for testing and exploration of new possibilities in human-to-machine interactions. There are some popular examples of experimental chatbots like Cleverbot, Mitsuki, and many more.

Conclusion

In this blog, we have talked about different types of bots. We have started our discussion with the basic question, which is, what is a chatbot? Then we went ahead and explained why it is not possible to write down every category.

In the next section, we will talk about a wide range of chatbots and the basis of their classification. Which is of two categories with a few sub-categories with their sub-categories.

That’s all for now, hope that you found this blog, informative and useful.

Thank you for reading till the end.