What are the three kinds of chatbot?
| Rule-based chatbot | AI chatbot | AI agent (e.g. Terabot) | |
|---|---|---|---|
| How it answers | Buttons, menus, keywords | Natural language from your content | Natural language, plus actions in your apps |
| Open questions | No | Yes | Yes |
| Looks up orders, stock, bookings | No | Only with integrations | Yes, through the screen |
| Does follow-up work | No | Rarely | Yes: CRM updates, quotes, bookings |
| Effort to change | Rebuild flows | Update content | Tell it in plain words |
How do you choose the best AI chatbot for a Malaysian business?
Start from your real conversations, not from features. Export a month of chats and emails and sort them: questions with fixed answers (hours, prices, delivery areas), questions that need a look-up (where is my order, is this in stock, can I book Thursday), and conversations that need a person (complaints, refunds, negotiations). If most are fixed answers, a simple AI chatbot on your website and WhatsApp may be enough. If many need look-ups, you need an AI agent that can work in your systems, or a chatbot with integrations, which costs more to build and maintain. Then test candidates with fifty of your real messages, in the languages your customers use, and measure how many they answer correctly without help. Check how each one hands over to a person, because the hand-over is where customers judge you.
Which channels matter in Malaysia?
- WhatsApp: where many Malaysian customers prefer to message businesses.
- Website chat: for visitors comparing options before they buy.
- Email: quotations, orders and B2B questions.
- Facebook and Instagram messages: for retail and consumer brands.
What does an AI chatbot cost?
Costs range from free tools with limits, to monthly software plans, to agency projects that include set-up and integrations. Ask for the total for a year: licences, set-up, message or usage fees, changes and support. Terabot is a monthly plan with unlimited digital workers; prices are announced at launch.
What to ask an AI chatbot agency in Malaysia
- Can we test it on fifty of our real messages first?
- Which languages does it handle well?
- How does it hand a chat to our staff, and with what summary?
- Can it check our systems, and what does that integration cost?
- Who updates it when our prices or policies change?
- Where are conversations stored, and how do we delete them (PDPA)?