Inside the World of Chatbots: Architecture, Functionality, and How They’re Built
What Exactly is a Chatbot? At its core, a chatbot is a software program that mimics human conversation . It can communicate via text, voice, or even a combination of both. Categories of Chatbots Rule-Based Bots Follow pre-programmed paths. Great for FAQs, menus, and predictable interactions. Example: “Press 1 for order status, Press 2 for cancellation.” AI-Powered Bots Leverage Natural Language Processing (NLP) and Machine Learning (ML) . Capable of understanding intent, context, and tone. Examples: ChatGPT, Google Assistant. How a Chatbot Works: Step-by-Step Imagine a user typing: “Book me a flight to New York on Monday.” Here’s the behind-the-scenes journey: User Input → Message enters the system via web, app, or messenger. Preprocessing → Text is cleaned, tokenized, and converted into machine-readable form. Intent Recognition → The bot identifies the goal (booking a flight). Entity Extraction → Pulls out details like “New York” (...