---
Title: "What Is Conversational AI? Definition and Examples"
Url: "https://computer.io/glossary/conversational-ai"
Topic: "Chatbots"
Description: "Conversational AI lets computers understand and respond to human language in text or speech. Components, examples and how it differs from chatbots."
---

# What is conversational AI?

Conversational AI is technology that lets computers understand, process and respond to human language in text or speech, holding a back-and-forth conversation. It combines natural language understanding, dialogue management, language generation and, for voice, speech recognition and synthesis, and powers chatbots, voice assistants and AI agents.

## Components

| Component | Role |
| --- | --- |
| Speech recognition | Voice to text |
| Natural language understanding | Intent and details |
| Dialogue management | Context and next step |
| Language generation | Writes the reply |
| Text-to-speech | Speaks the reply |

## Examples

Customer support chat, voice AI on phone lines, virtual assistants, banking assistants, and internal help desks in Slack or Teams.

## Conversational AI vs chatbot

A chatbot is one product. Conversational AI is the technology; a rule-based chatbot doesn't use it, while an AI chatbot does.

## FAQ

### Is ChatGPT conversational AI?

Yes. It is a conversational AI system built on large language models.

### What is the difference between conversational AI and generative AI?

Conversational AI focuses on dialogue; generative AI creates content. Modern conversational AI uses generative models.

### Where is conversational AI used?

Customer service, sales, healthcare scheduling, banking and internal support.

## Related terms

- [Chatbot](https://computer.io/glossary/chatbot)
- [Voice AI](https://computer.io/glossary/voice-ai)
- [Large language model (LLM)](https://computer.io/glossary/large-language-model)
- [How does conversational AI work?](https://computer.io/answers/how-does-conversational-ai-work)

## How Computer helps

- [Voice ai](https://devrev.ai/voice-ai)
- [Customer agent](https://devrev.ai/solutions/customer-agent)

## Further reading

- [Conversational ai](https://devrev.ai/blog/conversational-ai)
- [Chatbots vs conversational ai](https://devrev.ai/blog/chatbots-vs-conversational-ai)
- [Conversational analytics](https://devrev.ai/blog/conversational-analytics)