A person, an AI, or both? It depends on when your enquiries arrive, what people ask, and whether anyone is free to answer. The table compares them; the quiz gives you an answer for your business.
Live chat is a person replying to website visitors in real time; a chatbot replies automatically, and an AI chatbot answers from your business’s own information at any hour. Live chat is better for judgement, complaints and closing sales when someone is free. A chatbot is better for repeat questions, collecting details and after-hours enquiries. Many small businesses use both: AI first, a person when needed.
Answer all five to see the result.
Scoring: answers that point to after-hours, repeat questions and no free staff count towards AI; answers that point to judgement and a person closing the sale count towards live chat.
| Feature | Live chat (a person) | AI chatbot |
|---|---|---|
| Who replies | A person on your team | AI, from your business's information |
| Hours | When someone is free to watch it | Any hour, every day |
| Reply speed | Depends on who's free | Instant |
| Best at | Judgement, complaints, closing a sale | Repeat questions, collecting details, after hours |
| Weak at | Nights, weekends, busy periods | Unusual questions, decisions about money |
| Cost driver | Staff time for every hour it's on | A monthly plan |
| Risk | Unanswered chats | Wrong answers if it's set up badly |
Hannah manages a busy dental practice in Toowong. Live chat answered by the front desk worked until 10am, when the phones took over and chats waited. They now run AI first: it answers fees, hours and new-patient questions and takes booking requests, and anything about a patient’s treatment goes to the front desk. The AI gives no clinical advice.
Illustrative composite based on common patterns, not a single client.
Next steps: work out what staffed live chat costs on your numbers, see which customer questions a bot can take, or look at how we build an AI chatbot for your website.
Live chat means a person replies to website visitors in real time. A chatbot replies automatically: older ones follow fixed scripts, AI chatbots understand the question and answer from the business's own information. Many businesses now use both: the AI answers first and passes to a person when needed.
People prefer a fast, correct answer. For simple questions that usually means a chatbot that answers instantly; for problems and complaints, a person. What frustrates people most is a bot that loops or hides the way to a human.
Yes. Your live chat history is the best starting material for a chatbot, because it shows exactly what visitors ask and how your team answers.
AI answers first, at any hour, and hands the conversation to a person when it needs judgement or when the visitor asks. The person sees the whole conversation, so the visitor doesn't repeat themselves.
Yes. Australia's AI Ethics Principles include transparency, and pretending to be a person damages trust when visitors work it out. Ours introduces itself as an AI assistant in the first message.
For most small businesses, yes, once you count the staff time needed to keep live chat answered. Our live chat software guide has a calculator for that staff time on your own numbers.
We build and run a custom AI chatbot for your website: $299 one-off setup, then from $29.99 a month (AUD, ex GST), month-to-month. See how we build and price an AI chatbot for websites.