Best AI Chatbots in 2025 — find the right AI chatbot for your business
Looking for the best AI chatbot? Explore the top AI chatbots in 2025 for customer service, content creation, and business automation.
Chatting with a business used to mean waiting on hold or sending an email into the void — but that’s changing fast. AI chatbots are stepping in to handle those conversations, giving customers quick answers and helping businesses stay responsive around the clock.
For companies, it’s more than just speeding things up. With AI chatbots handling common questions and simple requests, teams have more time to focus on trickier issues that need a human touch.
Whether it’s answering order questions, helping people find the right product, or even nudging someone toward checkout, chatbots are becoming part of the team — making service smoother and keeping customers happy.
In this article, we’ll break down what an AI chatbot actually is, highlight some of the best AI chatbots available today, walk you through how to choose the right one for your business, and show how brands across APAC are already using AI chatbots to improve customer service and marketing.
Short on time?
Here is a table of content for quick access:
- What is an AI chatbot?
- Best AI chatbots in 2025 — AI chatbots for business, marketing, and support
- How to choose the right AI chatbot for your business
- APAC brands and their AI-powered chatbots
Patrecia Meliana
What is an AI chatbot?
An AI chatbot is a computer program that can chat with people, just like how you text a friend — except this friend is powered by artificial intelligence. AI chatbots don’t just follow a script like older bots did. They use natural language processing (NLP), which means they can understand everyday language, even if you don’t type perfectly. They can also learn from conversations to get smarter over time.
Businesses use AI chatbots to answer customer questions, help people place orders, or even recommend products based on what you’re asking. These chatbots work on websites, apps, and messaging platforms like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger. Some AI chatbots can even talk to you over the phone.
In short, AI chatbots help businesses reply faster, handle lots of conversations at once, and keep service running even after office hours — all without needing a human to step in for every single question.
Best AI chatbots in 2025
AI chatbots have emerged as key players in enhancing customer engagement and operational efficiency across various industries. These advanced tools leverage artificial intelligence to provide more efficient, personalized customer experiences.
- Drift (now Salesloft)
Drift focuses on conversational marketing and sales, helping businesses engage website visitors in real time to capture leads and shorten sales cycles. Unlike traditional chatbots designed for customer support, Drift’s AI-powered chatbot is built specifically to qualify leads, book meetings, and seamlessly hand off conversations to human sales reps when a personal touch is needed. This blend of AI automation and live chat makes Drift more suited for sales teams than customer service departments.
- Intercom
Intercom offers a suite of tools designed to manage customer support, marketing, and engagement in one platform, with Fin AI chatbot now playing a key role in its offering. Fin combines AI-powered automation with real-time human handoff, meaning the chatbot can handle common questions on its own while seamlessly transferring complex or sensitive conversations to a live agent when needed.
This mix of automation and personal support makes Intercom especially popular among tech startups and SaaS companies — including many in APAC — that want to scale customer service without losing the personal touch. Pricing starts at US$74 per month for smaller businesses, with flexible plans that grow alongside a company’s needs, making Intercom a fit for businesses of all sizes.
- Landbot
Landbot specializes in chatbots for websites and landing pages, giving marketers a drag-and-drop interface to design conversational experiences. Whether it’s capturing leads, qualifying prospects, or running interactive campaigns, Landbot’s no-code builder makes it easy for marketers to test and optimize conversations without needing a developer. It also integrates with Google Sheets, Slack, and email tools, helping marketers manage captured leads seamlessly.
- Zendesk
Zendesk AI chatbot is part of Zendesk’s larger customer service platform, designed to automate common support requests while keeping human agents in the loop for more complex issues. With new AI-powered features, Zendesk doesn’t just automate conversations — it also acts as a real-time assistant for agents, suggesting responses and surfacing relevant information during live chats. This combination of AI chatbot automation and agent assist tools makes Zendesk’s solution ideal for customer service teams, rather than marketing or sales use cases.
Zendesk has also partnered with OpenAI, enhancing its chatbot capabilities with generative AI, allowing businesses to handle more nuanced, free-text queries with natural-sounding responses. For companies already using Zendesk’s ticketing system, this AI chatbot offers seamless integration, helping customer support teams streamline workflows without switching tools.
- Tidio
Tidio offers an intuitive drag-and-drop chatbot builder, making it easy for marketers to create automated conversations for websites and online stores. It comes with pre-built templates for common tasks like lead generation, product recommendations, and customer support.
Tidio also integrates with platforms like Shopify, WooCommerce, and WordPress, making it a favorite for marketers in e-commerce. The visual interface makes it easy to map out conversations without writing a single line of code.
How to choose the right AI chatbot for your business
Not all AI chatbots are the same, so picking the right one depends on what you actually need it to do. Here’s a simple way to think about it:
1. What’s the chatbot’s main job?
Do you want it to answer customer service questions, help your sales team get leads, or run promotions on social media? Different bots are built for different jobs.
2. Do you want a smart bot or a basic one?
If you just need something to answer simple FAQs (like store hours or return policies), a basic rule-based chatbot might be enough. But if you want the bot to understand complicated questions or have more natural conversations, you’ll need a smarter AI chatbot.
3. Where will people talk to the chatbot?
Think about where your customers hang out. Do they visit your website, use your app, or chat with your business on WhatsApp? The chatbot you pick should work on those platforms.
4. Does it play nice with your other tools?
The best AI chatbots can connect to your other systems, like your CRM or e-commerce platform, so they know who your customers are and what they’ve bought before. This helps the bot give more helpful answers.
5. How much does it cost?
Some AI chatbots have free plans, while others charge based on how many people talk to the bot or how many messages it sends. Make sure the price makes sense for your business size.
6. Can you teach it new things?
Some chatbots come ready to use, but others let you train them to understand your business’s products, services, and style. If you want the chatbot to feel like part of your brand, look for one that you can customize.
APAC brands and their AI-powered chatbots
In the APAC region, the adoption of AI-powered chatbots by brands showcases a commitment to leveraging technology for customer service, marketing, and operational efficiency. Here are three examples of how APAC brands are utilizing AI chatbots in their business processes:
DBS Bank (Singapore), a financial services group in Asia, uses an AI chatbot, "DBS digibank," to handle customer inquiries, provide account information, and facilitate banking transactions securely. By integrating AI into their customer service framework, DBS Bank has aimed to improve response times and customer satisfaction, setting a standard for digital banking in Singapore and the region.
AirAsia (Malaysia), a leading low-cost airline in Asia, introduced Ask Bo, an AI-powered chatbot designed to assist customers across multiple channels, including the airline’s website, mobile app, and popular messaging platforms.
Ask Bo helps passengers with booking management, flight status updates, refunds, and frequently asked questions, aiming to speed up responses and reduce the need for human intervention. By offering consistent support across different platforms, Ask Bo plays a key role in keeping AirAsia’s customer service running 24/7, especially during peak travel periods.
Woolworths, one of Australia's largest supermarket chains, uses an AI chatbot named "Olive" to enhance its customer support services. Olive assists customers with inquiries related to store information, product availability, and COVID-19 related updates.
By integrating the chatbot into its customer service operations, Woolworths aims to streamline query resolution and free up human agents for more complex customer needs, thereby improving operational efficiency and customer satisfaction.
These examples underscore the significant role AI chatbots play in transforming business operations and customer service across various industries in the APAC region.
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