Conversational agent, a synonym for a chatbot, publications, examples and news.

The word ‘Conversational Agent’ consist of ‘conversational’ and ‘agent’. The word ‘agent’ has its roots late 15th century and means: “one who acts,” from Latin ‘agentem’ (nominative:. agens, gender:. agentis), prp. of agere “to set in motion, drive, lead, conduct” (see act). Meaning “any natural force or substance which produces a phenomenon” is first recorded 1570s.

Nowadays the term ‘agent’ has many different meanings. Conversational agent is one of them.

Conversational agents, a synonym of a chatbot, are just having conversations, nothing else and they are not ‘acting’ at all. Thus, the addition ‘agent’ does not link to its original roots anymore.

The term conversational agent is primarily used in an academic context. On Chatbots.org you can find many examples of live conversational agents, news on conversational agents and conversational agent awerds. Furthermore, we’ve setup a list of conversational agent developers.

Resources using the term conversational agents

Recent publications using the term ‘conversational agents’:

Pages on this website using 'conversational agents'

Synonyms for conversational agents

The worldwide community doesn’t yet have consensus on what terminology to use to address chatbots. Synonyms are virtual agents, interactive virtual agents (IVA), brand agents, branded agents, virtual assistants, artificial conversational entities, virtual employees, conversational agents, embodied conversational agents (ECA), chatterbots, conversational systems, chatterbox, virtual chat agents, or chat bots. Additionally lots of local variations on the usage of the terms exist. We strongly believe that the chatbot community should collaborate worldwide to standardize terminology, as that will professionalize the market. Chatbots.org is willing to facilitate this discussion. We’ll use the term ‘chatbot’ on this website.