Build a free AI chatbot for your business- 2024 guide

Overview:

AI chatbots — they’re the innovation that’s changing the landscape of online ‌support. These advanced AI systems can simulate actual human conversations with customers 24/7. 

They also learn from each interaction, becoming smarter and more effective over time. 

There are many fantastic premium AI chatbots, but is it possible to get an AI chatbot for free? As it turns out, there are plenty of free chatbot options for businesses, but they vary in quality. In this article, we’ll walk you through the benefits and challenges of these free platforms and teach you how to build your own free business AI chatbot.

Introduction to free AI chatbots

If you’re just starting with chatbots, chances are you're looking for a free version to learn the basics. Free AI chatbots are capable of simple automation — asking predefined questions, searching for answers from within your knowledge base, handing over a chat to an agent, or collecting user data.

If this sounds suspiciously like a simple self-service chat widget, it's because "Free" AI chatbots are often exactly that — most aren’t AI-enabled at all. 

Many of these free alternatives quickly display their limitations when upgrading capabilities or integrating with your helpdesk or CRM. So, if you want to set up a future-proof AI chatbot that can fulfill all your requirements at different business stages, consider going for truly AI-enabled paid options. Here are some ways a truly AI-enabled chatbot software can launch campaigns and help grow your business.

How does an AI chatbot work?

AI chatbots use Natural Language Processing (NLP), Machine Learning (ML), and intelligent analysis to understand customer input and offer a relevant response. These AI chatbots analyze intent and other factors like tone and sentiment instead of focusing on a particular keyword. 

They use Machine Learning or ML to continuously learn from each conversation. This helps them understand and respond better. It’s what separates them from a rule-based chatbot that gets stuck on questions that don’t have predefined answers. 

For instance, suppose the question is, “Where can I get information on a refund?” 

If the customer phrases it as, “Where can I find out more about a refund?” Or “What is your refund policy?”, AI-enabled chatbots can understand that the intention of the question is the same and address the concern appropriately.

AI chatbots can also prompt customers to take the next step. 

For instance, in the above scenario, AI chatbots can follow up with, “Do you wish to initiate a refund for your recent purchase?” This prompts the customer to take the next step and get their information to process a refund. 

What are the benefits of AI chatbots?

Let’s review some more benefits of AI chatbots.

Intent-driven selling

Replace cold selling with intent-driven selling. Understand your prospects based on their behaviors and start a personalized conversation based on their actions. 

Chatbots can guide customers through the entire purchasing experience. From selecting the right product make, model, and color to recommending relevant add-ons, smart chatbots can act like mini sales reps.

Acquire and engage leads

Convert them into leads or customers. Leverage user behavior data to engage with visitors who’ve displayed an interest or intent to purchase. For instance, you can program an AI chatbot with a “welcome back” message or have it remind the customer of any items they left in their carts.

Offer precise and instant answers

Remove the guesswork from your responses. Understand user intent and send precise answers or automatically transfer conversations to a human. AI chatbots look between the lines to truly understand your visitors. This helps bots deliver specific solutions and answers to their problems.

Start conversations with prospects 

Start a conversation with your website visitors before they exit. Send personalized messages, reduce bounce rates, and nurture visitors with low intention to buy. For instance, have the AI bot ask the visitor if they’d like access to a resource, such as a relevant ebook. Or, ask the prospect if they’d like to attend an upcoming webinar. 

Turn visitors into customers

Collect user intel based on user actions on your website/ product/ app. Target proactive messages to qualify, nurture, and sell. 

Real-time smart insights

Leverage a real-time dashboard to measure key metrics including response rate, conversation trends, and resolution time. You can also keep tabs on your team's performance. Use these insights to improve your chatbot and internal processes often.

Key features to look for in free AI chatbots

When trying to decide whether a free or paid chatbot service is right for you, consider a few vital features that should come as part of any quality chatbot service. 

Make sure that your chatbot has user-friendly features like:

• Integrations with existing systems

• The ability to run through various messaging channels

• Web widget to feature on your site

• API for personalization

• Reporting and analytics features

• A customizable real-time dashboard

• Visitor intel

• For more Freshworks chatbot features, click here

Chatbots tailored for your business needs

• Use Freddy Answer Bot to automate repetitive queries, deliver instant answers and follow up with smart conversations.

• Use Freddy Custom Chatbots to create conversational bot flows to qualify leads, nurture prospects and bring down cart abandonment.

Tips for implementing AI chatbots

When it’s time to start implementing your AI chatbots, there are several chatbot best practices you’ll need to take. 

For instance …

Understand your goals

When rolling out a chatbot, you need a thorough gameplan. That means knowing what you want to achieve with this software before making your selection. Create a list of goals, including what they are and how they contribute to your continued success. 

For example, “I want to implement an AI chatbot to reduce phone support hold times by 10% in the fourth quarter. This should streamline the customer experience, create more effective support from human agents, and create a better and less stressful working environment.” 

Create your greetings

First impressions count. That’s why your chatbot has to greet your customers the right way the first time. 

Take what you know about your target audience and its preferences into account when crafting these greeting templates. It should be inviting, informative, and lay out exactly what you want the customer to do. 

Craft a chatbot personality

Your chatbot is part of the customer support department. Just like a human representative, it needs a unique, welcoming personality. This personality should reflect the business’s values and brand voice. 

For example, if you’re a young laid-back company catering to Gen Z, you might take a more laid-back and familiar approach. However, if you’re programming a personality for a law firm, you’ll want to be crisp, professional, and informative without overloading the customer with jargon. 

When creating a personality for your chatbot, you essentially craft the perfect customer support representative for your business and audience.  

Train your new chatbot before rollout

Before your chatbot has its first conversation with a customer, it should be an expert in human interaction. That’s because it has already been having training conversations with you. 

Approach your chatbot as a customer would. Come at it from different angles and see how it adjusts its responses. The machine learning algorithm present in AI chatbots learns from every interaction. 

That means you’ll make your AI chatbot smarter every time you talk to it. 

Integrate the chatbot with existing systems

Your chatbot isn’t serving to its full potential if it’s only available through your website. That’s why you need to find a conversational AI chatbot with easy-to-set-up integrations with other platforms. 

This can include your CRM importing new customer support data. It can also include your ticketing system, any social media, chat platforms like WhatsApp or Telegram, and any other customer-facing system. Make sure the chatbot hooks into your knowledge base and blog so that it can recommend helpful self-service resources to customers. 

Gather customer feedback after launch

Your target audience might have interactions with the chatbot you never anticipated. For instance, they might loathe your greeting template or expect capabilities your bot doesn’t have yet. 

Implementation doesn’t stop at rollout. You also have to upgrade your service over time to remain relevant to what users are looking for. 

That’s why it’s important to poll your audience after chatbot interactions to get their opinions on everything from the AI chat to AI tools. Ask about important matters, such as requested add-ons, major issues, and more. Use this data to upgrade your chatbot in the future and create a better user experience.  

How to make a code-free AI chatbot with FreddyAI

With Freshworks, creating a chatbot is a simple matter with Freddy AI, our artificial intelligence technology. In fact, it’s as easy as writing an email. Let’s take a look.

Step 1: Choose the right solution for you: FreddyAI or a Custom Bot

Depending on your requirements, you can:

1. Opt to have FreddyAI create simple workflows

2. Choose the AI-enabled Freddy bots to build interactive, customizable workflows that directly reflect your branding and unique needs.

Step 2: Design your workflows

Whether you’re setting up an FAQ bot or an AI-enabled chatbot, design intuitive workflows that help customers find answers, enable ticket deflection, and provide seamless customer experiences.

Step 3: Preview and publish

Preview the bot flow to see how it works in real-time. Once you’re done, hit the “Publish” button to take it live.

Case studies:

• https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/resources/case-study/us-financial-services/
• https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/resources/case-study/fantastic-services/
• https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/resources/mtn-cameroon/
• https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/resources/telangana-government/
• https://www.freshworks.com/live-chat-software/resources/doctaly/

Why choose Freshworks for AI chatbot software?

AI chatbot that learns

Support and sales bots work through AI and ML that detect the intent of prospects and learn from questions asked over time. 

Freshworks’s AI solution FreddyAI can help deliver personalized experiences and recommendations to customers. 

Additionally, it can use the information it gathers through machine learning algorithms and create a predictive analysis that accurately predicts where your business, audience, and industry can go in the future. 

Integration with messaging channels

For an all-encompassing support experience, integrate Freshworks with the top messaging tools used today — WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger, iMessage, and Slack.

Integration with CRM 

Bring a messenger right inside your software — respond to chats and tickets from the same place.

Intelligent agent handoff

Deploy chat routing based on the skill level and current chat load of team members. This avoids the hassle of cherry-picking conversations and manually assigning them to agents.

Automatic lead qualification

Use chatbots to gather information about visitors over a period of time. Use this data to qualify leads, and help sales reps focus on converting prospects.

The best free AI chatbots to test out in 2024

In the following sections, we’ll lay out ten quality options for AI chatbots in 2024. In keeping with the overall theme of the article, all options have a limited free membership. 

Unlike user-centric free chatbots like OpenAI’s ChatGPT, all of these are meant for the business world for communicating with customers. We’ll break down these free options, listing out the features and core functionality of each choice before circling back around to tell you what they’re best used for. 

1. Freshworks Customer Service Suite:

Freshworks offers AI-driven, omnichannel chatbots to enhance customer conversations intelligently. It's a valuable addition to your support tech stack, ensuring delightful support experiences consistently. 

Features

• AI-driven, omnichannel chatbots

• Smarter customer conversations

• Seamless integration into your support tech stack

• Consistent delivery of delightful support experiences

• Instant responses 

• No-code visual bot builder

• Transfer the chat to an agent

• Messaging channels, including WhatsApp, Facebook Messenger and more

2. ManyChat

First up on our list is ManyChat, a free chatbot solution that’s received a lot of mainstream attention and praise. Its claim to fame is allowing users to create chatbots for Facebook Messenger with no code whatsoever. 

Its basic plan is totally free, but you’re limited to only 500 subscribers. It also comes with unlimited broadcasts, promotional tools, and two broadcast sequences. Anyone looking for more than 500 subscribers would need to upgrade to the pro plan, which is $10 per month. 

Features

ManyChat has several features, including: 

• Integrations into popular platforms, such as Zapier, Google Sheets, Shopify, and many more 

• Welcome messages that pop up before the chat opens

• Automated FAQ responses

• Message responses through images, buttons, slides, and links

Core functionality

The core functionality for ManyChat’s conversational AI chatbot comes from automating customer service support. It also has features that make it a useful marketing tool.  

Best used for

ManyChat is best used for ecommerce/retail businesses, thanks to its suite of quality integrations and automated FAQ responses.

3. ChatInsight.AI

ChatInsight is a popular AI chatbot that helps businesses create a quality knowledge base. It offers 24/7 self-service support for customers online. On its official website, it touts its ability to “engage like a human” in personalized conversations with users. The popular ChatCGT platform powers its AI chatbot.

ChatInsight has a limited free plan that requires no credit card. The free plan only covers one user and one shareable custom style per both. You’re only allowed up to 5 bots and 250 credits each month. It has paid plans starting at $29 and going all the way up to $249.90 per month.

Features

ChatInsight’s key features include: 

• Allowing users to create 24/7 customer support 

• Leveraging artificial intelligence to address frequently-asked questions

• Real-time answers given at a moment's notice through an AI chatbot

• Advanced multilingual support

• Empathetic conversations

• Support team mentorship driven by data

Core functionality

Creating an AI chatbot that interacts with your knowledge base is the core functionality at the heart of Chatinsight’s offerings. 

Best used for

ChatInsight’s free plan is best used for small companies in a niche market. With only one user and five bots allowed, it’s not ideal for mid-to large-size businesses like those found in travel/hospitality.

4. Chatfuel

If you’re looking for a chatbot builder that’s free and works with Facebook Messenger, Chatfuel might be a solid option. Users can create these bots without any technical knowledge or coding experience. 

It runs off of artificial intelligence and has a free option that’s specifically designed for small businesses. Paid plans for larger companies start at $15 per month. 

Features

Some of the main features offered through Chatfuel include: 

• Creating AI-powered chatbots that work with Facebook Messenger

• Generating chatbots without any coding knowledge or experience

• Understanding when it’s time to forward a customer support request to a human agent

• Content cards to add in conversations and share with customers

• Data mining conversations with customers for actionable insights

• Integrating with commonly used social media platforms like X, YouTube, and Instagram. 

Core functionality

The core functionality for Chatfuel revolves around creating no-code chatbots that can hold useful conversations with customers. It can resolve common questions and understands when it needs to forward the request on to a human agent. 

Its most commonly touted feature is its Facebook Messenger chatbots.

Best used for

The free plan for Chatfuel works best for small companies. Mid-to large-sized companies like financial services or education can have more luck with one of the company’s paid plans. 

5. Botsonic

Botsonic is a free AI chatbot builder that emphasizes fast-paced customer conversations through AI. It runs off an advanced platform, using the power of GPT-4 and NLP technologies to answer customer queries quickly and in a complete manner. 

It has a free option with certain limitations in place. For example, you’re only allowed one chatbot with a limit of 100 messages each month. There’s only one team admin allowed and you can upload 1 million characters. However, the free plan can embed on unlimited websites. 

There’s a paid plan starting at $49 per month. 

Features

Some of the features available through Botsonic include: 

• Integration with platforms like WhatsApp, Slack, Facebook Messenger, and more

• Customization options that allow you to inject personal branding into the chatbot you create

• 24/7 customer support through ChatGPT

• Multilingual language model support

Core functionality

Botsonic’s core functionality centers on creating personalized chatbot solutions that run off the popular ChatGPT platform to provide support to customers 24/7

Best used for

The free version of Botsonic works for small to midsize companies. While the system has its limits, it has a bit more than most free generative AI platforms. 

6. Watson Assistant

Watson is the intelligent virtual agent rolled out by IMB. The company touts an impressive return on investment and accuracy rate while offering support to customers 24/7. 

Watson Assistant is a platform that features a free lite plan that expires if it’s not used for a 30-day period. There are also several chatbot use cases listed on IBM’s site.  

Features

Some of the key features of Watson Assistant by IBM include: 

• An agent assist feature that helps with training and technique scaling

• Conversational natural language AI featured in a chatbot that mimics human conversation

• Integrations into popular apps like Facebook Messenger, Slack, and WhatsApp for a more omnichannel experience

• A visual builder that lets users create chatbots without any coding skills

• The ability to give your chatbot AI an actual voice to speak with customers directly

Core functionality

At its core functionality, Watson Assistant allows users to create advanced AI chatbots that can provide 24/7 customer support for businesses. 

Best used for

The free Lite plan offered through Watson Assistant has a lot of limitations and is only recommended for smaller businesses. Larger businesses should get a lot more value out of a paid premium service. 

7. Pandorabots

Pandorabots is a chatbot solution that’s particularly popular with developers. The system makes the lofty claim that developers have used its platform to create more than 300,000 bots. Combined, these bots have sent an estimated 60 billion messages. 

Pandorabots has a free plan that allows for an unlimited development sandbox. It also has paid plans starting at $19 per month and going up to $199 per month. 

Features

Some of the core features offered through Pandorabots include:

• Special chatbot API for developers

• Chatbots to use on any social media platform

• User-friendly design

• Integrations with existing platforms

Core functionality

Developers who are trying to make custom chatbots to use on other platforms use Pandorabots. 

Best used for

This is a service best reserved for developers. It’s not particularly user-friendly and wasn’t designed for regular use. 

8. Landbot

Landbot praises the intuitive no-code nature of its free AI chatbot builder. It uses templates that all have different strengths based on a business’s nature and specific goals. 

The Landbot Sandbox is completely free of charge. It has paid plans for larger businesses that need some additional features. 

Features

Key features of Landbot include:

• Access to a library of built-in chatbot templates

• A totally code-free platform

• A drag-and-drop interface that makes designing your chatbot simple

• Multichannel experiences, including an add-on for the popular messaging service WhatsApp. 

• Seamless integrations with a full suite of additional tools, creating an omnichannel experience for customers. 

Core functionality

Landbot focuses on the creation of custom AI chatbots using accessibility tools like a drag-and-drop editor, pre-made templates, and more. 

Best used for

Landbot’s free platform is best for smaller companies. Specifically, small companies looking to develop an AI chatbot without putting in a lot of work on the design and functionality. The pre-made templates should do a lot of the heavy lifting. 

9. HubSpot Chatbot

The HubSpot platform also has a free chatbot software tool. It helps with customer support but also uses automation features to qualify leads and book features. 

It has a free plan that includes unlimited personalized conversations. There are three paid plans, starting at $45 per month and going all the way up to $1,200 per month for the Enterprise plan.

Features

Some of the special features users of the HubSpot chatbot can use include: 

• Lead qualification

• Customer service conversational chatbot

• Automated meeting booking

• Database integration

• Data analysis

Core functionality

Customers use HubSpot chatbot to automate repetitive tasks and aid in lead generation and qualification efforts. It also creates a conversational chatbot that can provide 24/7 support for customers anywhere in the world. 

Best used for

Hubspot’s free chatbot plan can be useful for small-to-midsize businesses thanks to its ability to set up unlimited personalized conversations. 

10. FlowXO

FlowXO is a free chatbot platform designed for fast development and deployment. While you can use it to chat with customers on the Facebook Messenger platform, it also has integrations for Buffer, LinkedIn, Gmail, and more. 

There’s a free plan available that lets users create up to five bots or active flows. You can also store two weeks of logs and access email support. Users on the free plan only get 500 interactions. Paid plans that start at $19 per month for larger businesses that need more. 

Features

Features of FlowXO include:

• Integrations with Facebook Messenger, Gmail, Github, MailGun, LinkedIn, Buffer, and more. 

• Pre-designed chatbot templates

• A drag-and-drop chatbot design editor

• Multi-language support

• Custom links to bots

• Attachment sending

• Personalization options for messaging,

• The ability to embed the chatbot on any website

Core functionality

Customers can use FlowXO to develop custom chatbots and roll them out across a variety of platforms, creating an omnichannel customer support experience. This is something customers are clamoring for — the ability to have a seamless support experience through different websites, locations, and chat windows. 

Best used for

FlowXO limits its free offering in scope, so it’s only recommended for very small businesses that won’t require a full suite of unlimited services. 

11. Tidio

Tidio is great for the SMB seeking a way to upgrade customer service effectiveness. It does this without breaking the bank or losing a large amount of time. 

In fact, Tidio is so user-friendly that you can implement new chatbots into a site in less than five minutes. 

The service runs on a freemium platform for a forever-free package and live chat. It provides users with up to three chat operators. There’s also a premium pricing plan that starts at €39 per month. 

Features

Tidio’s key features include the following: 

• Three chat operators

• 500 emails per month 

• Unlimited chats 

• Information on all visitors 

• Apps for both desktop and mobile 

• Javascript api

• Integrations with third-party apps

• 100 unique visitors 

Core functionality

Small and mid-size businesses use Tidio to create and roll out chatbots in record time. 

Best used for

The free plan comes with enough features to be useful for mid-size businesses, but larger companies might want to invest in a premium paid service.