Everything we've written about evaluating, buying, and trusting AI support chatbots

Can you trust what it tells you

The core question underneath everything else: does the chatbot actually know what it's talking about, and does it admit it when it doesn't.

• Why AI chatbots give confidently wrong answers

  The most common trust-breaker with any AI chatbot isn't that it doesn't know something. It's that it doesn't know it doesn't know.

• What "grounded in your docs" actually means

  A simple, checkable way to tell if a chatbot is actually answering from your real content or just claiming to.

• Why some chatbots tell you to visit the help page you're already on

  A common, easy-to-spot mistake, and a 30-second way to test any chatbot for it.

• What should happen when a chatbot can't answer

  The difference between a dead end and a real handoff to a person.

What you're actually signing up for

Install, contract terms, and pricing: the parts of a chatbot purchase that live outside the demo.

• Why an AI chatbot should be as easy to remove as it is to add

  Most software gets easier to install and harder to leave. Here's why that shouldn't be true of a chatbot.

• What to check before you sign a chatbot contract

  A practical checklist for evaluating vendors before you commit.

• The hidden fees in AI chatbot pricing

  The advertised price rarely tells the whole story. What to check before comparing tools.

How to tell if it's actually working

Reviews, vendor metrics, and your own ticket data: how to evaluate a chatbot's real-world performance instead of trusting a headline number.

• Why chatbot reviews look so different depending on where you check

  The same tool can score very differently depending on who's actually writing the review.

• What "deflection rate" numbers actually measure (and don't)

  A number that sounds more rigorous than what it's usually actually counting.

• How many of your support tickets are actually repetitive

  How to check what share of your own ticket volume is repeat questions your docs already answer, instead of guessing.