A chatbot is a software application that aims to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions, mostly online. Modern chatbots are artificial intelligence (AI) systems that are capable of having a conversation with a user in natural language and simulating the way a human would behave as a conversational partner. Such technologies often utilize aspects of deep learning and natural language processing.

Recently this field has gained widespread attention due to the popularity of OpenAI’s ChatGPT, followed by alternatives such as MSFT Bing Chat (which uses OpenAI’s GPT-4) and Google’s Bard. Such examples reflect the recent practice of such products being built based upon broad foundational large language models that get fine-tuned so as to target specific tasks or applications (i.e. simulating human conversation, in the case of chatbots). Chatbots can also be designed or customized to further target more specific situations and particular subject-matter domains.