AI chat solutions for shops, compared honestly
Four kinds of tool get called "AI chat". They fail in different places, and the differences matter more than the feature lists.
· 1 min read
Almost every chat tool on the market is one of four things wearing similar marketing. Knowing which one you are looking at tells you more than any comparison table.
1. The help-centre search box
Matches the visitor's words against your articles and returns the closest one. Pro: cheap, predictable, never invents anything. Con: it cannot answer anything not already written as an article, and it is the origin of "I did not quite get that".
2. The general assistant with your site pasted in
A language model given your pages as context. Pro: handles real phrasing, in any language, immediately. Con: no live data — it will quote a price that changed last month, and it will answer a returns question you never wrote a policy for.
3. The helpdesk add-on
AI bolted onto the ticketing system you already run. Pro: it lives where your team already works, and escalation is native. Con: it is built around deflecting tickets, so it is measured on conversations closed, not orders placed.
4. The catalog-aware assistant
Reads your live product data and your written policies, and can act — cart, promotions, order status. Pro: it can finish a sale rather than describe one. Con: it is only as good as the catalog behind it, and a messy product feed shows up immediately in the answers.
How to choose in one question
What do you want the conversation to end in? A closed ticket points at the helpdesk add-on. An order points at the catalog-aware one. If the honest answer is "a person", buy a better inbox instead of a bot.