Chatbot glossary

LLM Routing

Sending Each Chatbot Question to the Right Model

Structured Outputs

Making a Chatbot's Model Answer in a Fixed JSON Shape

Prompt Versioning

Numbering, Labeling and Rolling Back a Chatbot's Instructions

Time to First Token (TTFT)

What It Measures and Why Chatbot Users Feel It

Small Language Model (SLM)

What It Is and When a Chatbot Can Use One

LLM Evaluation

How to Tell Whether a Language Model Is Good Enough for Your Chatbot

LLM Gateway

One Layer Between Your Chatbot and Every Model Provider

Model Distillation

Teaching a Small AI Model to Imitate a Big One

Semantic Caching

Reusing an LLM Answer for a Question That Means the Same Thing

LLM Token

What a Token Is, How Models Count Them, and Why Your Bill Follows Them

LLM Observability

Seeing What Your AI Chatbot Actually Did, Step by Step

Chain-of-Thought Prompting

Making a Model Reason Step by Step (and When Not To)

Few-Shot Prompting

Teaching a Chatbot by Example Inside the Prompt

LLM Temperature

What the Setting Does to a Chatbot's Answers

Agentic RAG

When a Chatbot Decides How, What and Whether to Retrieve

LLM-as-a-Judge

Using One Model to Grade Another Model's Chatbot Answers

Reranking

The Second Look That Decides Which Retrieved Passages a Chatbot Actually Reads

Chunking

How AI Chatbots Split Your Documents Before They Can Answer From Them

Ice Breaker

The Four Preset Questions That Start a Messenger or Instagram Conversation

ARIA Live Region

The Attribute That Makes a Chatbot's Replies Announced

Progressive Profiling

Collecting Customer Data a Few Fields at a Time Instead of All at Once

Model Drift

Why a Chatbot That Worked in January Answers Worse by June, and What Isn't Drift

Phased Rollout

Launching a Chatbot to Part of Your Traffic First, the Four Dials, and Which Ones Vendors Give You

Cost per Conversation

What Goes Into the Number, Why It Differs by Channel, and Why the Platform Fee Usually Dwarfs the Message Fee

Concurrent Calls

What the Second Meter on a Voice AI Bill Counts, How Many Lines You Need, and What Each Vendor Does When They Are Full

Chatbot Funnel

What It Is, What Counts as a Step in a Chat, and How Each Builder Counts the Drop-Off

Conversational Survey

What It Is, the Two Things the Term Means, and What Each Channel Lets You Ask

Win-Back Campaign

What It Is, and Why It Works Differently in Chat Than in Email

Conversational Form

One Question at a Time, and the Two Things Vendors Mean by It

Hybrid Chatbot

The Three Things the Word Means, and Which One You Are Being Sold

Reprompt

What It Is, When a Bot Sends One, and How Many Before It Gives Up

FAQ Chatbot

What It Is, the Two Ways to Build One, and How Many Q&A Pairs It Takes

Golden Dataset

What It Is, How to Build One for a Chatbot, and What the Vendors' Test Tools Accept

Data Subject Access Request (DSAR)

The Eight Things You Owe, the Clock That Starts Before You Notice, and Where a Chatbot Hides the Data

Machine Translation

What It Is, Where It Runs in a Chatbot, and What the Meters Say

In-App Messaging

Definition, Formats by Surface, and Why Vendors Meter It Differently

AI Receptionist

Definition, the Three Meters It Is Billed On, and Why the Same 300 Calls Cost $129 on One and $500 on Another

Click-to-WhatsApp Ads

The Ad That Opens a Chat, the 72-Hour Window It Can Earn, and Where Our Own Pages Got the Trigger Wrong

WhatsApp Message Template

The Pre-Approved Message, and the Approval-Time Gap in Our Own Reviews

Warm Transfer

Our Reviews Score the Easy Half, and Nobody Tests the Other One

Audit Log

Thirteen of Our Fifteen Platforms Sell Permission, One Sells Memory

Lead Scoring

Your Chatbot Does Not Do It, and the Destination You Picked Decides Whether Anything Does

Unified Inbox

Why the Seat You Add Costs More Than the Seat You Bought

Candidate Screening

The Line Where a Recruiting Chatbot Stops Being a FAQ Bot and Becomes a Regulated Instrument

Context Engineering

What Goes Into the Model's Window, Who Decides It, and What Fifteen Platform Reviews Could Not Find

Business Associate Agreement

The Only Document That Makes a Chatbot Vendor Answerable for Patient Data, and Why It Sits Above Every Self-Serve Tier We Could Document

Data Retention Policy

The Number GDPR Will Not Give You, and the Traffic Level Below Which Deleting Early Blinds Your Bot

Prompt Caching

The Discount Everyone Quotes, and the Traffic Rate Where It Turns Into a Surcharge

Average Handle Time

The Metric That Gets Worse When Automation Works

First Contact Resolution

The Metric That Falls When Self-Service Works

Customer Effort Score

The Metric That Prices What the Customer Had to Do

Lead Nurturing

Three Different Activities Wearing One Name

LLM Security

Which of the Top Ten Risks Are Actually Yours

LLM Jailbreak

Where the Two Standards Bodies File It Differently

No-Code Chatbot

What the Phrase Promises, and Where It Stops

Conversational AI Design

The Discipline, and How It Split in 2026

Typing Indicator

What the Three Dots Cost You on Each Channel

Chatbot Quick Reply

Definition, UX Patterns, and Best Practices

Dialogue Management

The Part of a Chatbot That Decides What Happens Next

What Is Slot Filling? The Named, Typed Boxes a Bot Fills Before It Can Act

WhatsApp Business API

Definition, How It Works, and Pricing

What Is the WhatsApp Green Tick? Meta's Current Documentation Calls It Blue

What Is Function Calling? The Model Asks, Your Code Answers, and Nothing Runs Until You Run It

What Are WhatsApp Flows? Forms Inside the Chat, and a Publish Button You Cannot Fully Undo

What Is Instagram DM Automation? Three Products Share the Name, and Only One Runs on Meta's Messaging API

What Is Chatbot Analytics? Where the Numbers Come From, and Why Two Dashboards Disagree

What Is a Chatbot API? Three Layers, Three Bills, and the Limits You Design Around

Multi-Agent System

The Three Things That Name Covers, the Coordination Patterns, and What the Second Agent Costs

Conversational Marketing

Definition, Where the Term Came From, and What the Speed Research Actually Says

Zero-Shot Learning

Definition, the Two Senses of the Term, and What It Removes From a Chatbot Project

SMS Chatbot

Definition, the Registration Gate, and Why the Channel Sets the Design

Generative AI Chatbot

Definition, the Three Shapes It Ships In, and What Changes Operationally

AI Guardrails

Definition, the Five Places They Run, and Which Ones Actually Hold

Conversational Commerce

Definition, Which Funnel Steps Chat Actually Owns, and Where the Full Version Is Real

Voice Bot

Definition, What Separates It from IVR and Voice Assistants, and Why Voice Is Harder than Chat

Abandoned Cart Recovery

Definition, Why Most Carts Are Unrecoverable, and How Chat Changes the Math

Agent Assist

Definition, How AI Copilots Help Human Agents, and Where the Approval Line Sits

Canned Response

Definition, How Saved Replies Work, and Why the Human Trigger Matters

Vector Embeddings

Definition, How Text Becomes Numbers, and Why Chatbots Run on Them

Interactive Voice Response (IVR)

Definition, DTMF to Conversational, and Why the Menu Survives

Drip Campaign

Definition, Channel Rules, and Why Chat Drips Differ from Email

Fine-Tuning

Definition, LoRA vs Full Fine-Tuning, and What It Does Not Do

Prompt Injection

Definition, Direct vs Indirect, and Why It Cannot Be Patched

Telegram Bot

Definition, How It Works, and What Makes It Different

Semantic Search

Definition, How It Differs from Keyword Search, and Why Chatbots Depend on It

AI Hallucination

Definition, Why Chatbots Make Things Up, and What Reduces It

Vector Database

Definition, How Similarity Search Works, and When You Need One

Net Promoter Score (NPS)

Definition, Formula, and What Counts as Good

Sentiment Analysis

Definition, How It Works, and Why Chatbots Use It

RCS Messaging

What It Is, How Businesses Use It, and Where It Fits

Prompt Engineering

What It Is, What It Actually Fixes, and Where It Stops

Speech-to-Text (STT)

The Input Half of a Voice Bot, and Why Its Errors Cost the Most

AI Virtual Assistant

One Label, Three Products, and the Allegiance Test That Sorts Them

Text-to-Speech (TTS)

The Output Half of a Voice Bot, and Why Latency Beats Beauty

Agentic AI

What 'Agentic' Actually Means, the Autonomy Spectrum, and How to Read the Label

Language Detection

How a Chatbot Decides What Language You're Speaking, and Why It Guesses Wrong

Channel Strategy

Choosing Which Channels a Chatbot Runs On, and Why Fewer Is Often Better

Context Window

The Fixed Budget of Text a Chatbot's Model Can Read at Once

Confirmation Message

The Bot's Turn That Closes the Loop Before It Commits

Chatbot Onboarding Flow

The Guided First Session That Decides Whether a User Comes Back

Chatbot Greeting Message

The First Turn That Sets Every Expectation

Chatbot Knowledge Base

The Content a Bot Actually Answers From

Dialog State Tracking

How a Chatbot Remembers the Conversation It's In

Intent Confidence

What the Score Means and How to Act on It

Turn-Taking in Chatbots

Definition, Voice vs Text, and Why It Breaks

Chatbot Resolution Rate

Definition, Formula, and Healthy Ranges

Chatbot First Response Time

Definition, Formula, and Healthy Ranges

Chatbot Abandonment Rate

Definition, Formula, and Healthy Ranges

Chatbot Containment Rate

Definition, Formula, and Healthy Ranges

Chatbot CSAT

Definition, Formula, and Healthy Ranges

Chatbot Escalation Rate

Definition, Formula, and Healthy Ranges

Chatbot Fallback Rate

Definition, Formula, and What's Normal

Quick Reply vs Button

What's the Difference in Chatbots?

Chatbot Personality Prompt

What It Is and How to Write One

Small Talk Handling

What It Means and How Chatbots Do It

Session Context

Definition, How Chatbots Use It, and Examples

Chatbot ROI

Definition, Formula, and How SMBs Measure It

BYOLLM (Bring Your Own LLM)

Definition, Trade-offs, and When to Use It

Chatbot Broadcast

Definition, Use Cases, and Compliance Rules

Chatbot Handoff Rules

How to Route Conversations to Humans the Right Way

Chatbot Deflection vs Containment

What's the Difference and Why It Matters

Chatbot Conversion Rate

Definition, Formula, and Benchmarks

Intent Recognition

Definition, How It Works, and Chatbot Examples

Natural Language Understanding (NLU)

Definition and How It Powers Chatbots

Large Language Model (LLM)

Definition, How LLMs Work, and Examples

Chatbot Deflection Rate

Definition, How to Measure It, and Benchmarks

Customer Service Chatbot

Definition, Best Practices, and Examples

Natural Language Processing (NLP)

Definition, How It Works, and Applications

System Prompt

Definition, How It Shapes LLM Behavior, and Examples

Retrieval-Augmented Generation (RAG)

Definition, How It Works, and Examples

AI Agent

Definition, How Agents Differ from Chatbots, and Examples

Chatbot Personality

Definition, How to Design It

Conversational AI

Definition, Components, and Use Cases

Human Handoff

Definition, Best Practices, and Examples

Live Chat

Definition, How It Differs from Chatbots, and Best Practices

Chatbot Training

Definition, How It Works, and Best Practices

Fallback Intent

Definition, Purpose, and Best Practices

Webhook

Definition, How Webhooks Work, and Examples

What is a Chatbot? Definition, Types, and Use Cases

Lead Generation Chatbot

Definition, How They Capture Leads, Examples

Model Context Protocol (MCP)

Definition, How It Works, and Why It Matters

AI Agent vs Chatbot

Key Differences and When to Use Which

Entity Extraction

Definition, How It Works in Chatbots

Utterance

Definition and Role in Chatbot Training