AI chatbots are transforming the way online retailers manage customer interactions. They allow you to respond to customer queries instantly and offer personalized support. By handling common questions, they free up your support team to focus on more complex issues.
Chances are you’re already using an AI chatbot for customer service. According to Gartner, 80% of companies now use AI to improve customer experiences, which shows how quickly it’s been adopted across industries, including ecommerce.
In this guide, you’ll learn how AI chatbots can improve customer service, how to use them, and the 11 best chatbots to consider for your ecommerce business.
What is an AI chatbot?
An AI chatbot is software that uses artificial intelligence (AI) systems to mimic human speech and simulate how a human would behave in conversation.
AI chatbots use various technologies, such as large language models, natural language processing (NLP), natural language understanding (NLU), and machine learning (ML), to understand and interpret user questions and provide relevant responses. They can also learn from their conversations and adapt their responses to different patterns and new situations over time.
AI chatbots provide value in various situations and applications, from customer service and sales to content creation and analytics. They are also found across most communication channels, from voice assistants to pop-up chatbots on websites.
How AI chatbots are transforming ecommerce in 2025
AI chatbots are becoming a strategic must-have for ecommerce businesses looking to remain competitive and meet rising customer expectations. With the global AI-driven ecommerce market expected to reach $9.01 billion by the end of 2025 and grow to $41.42 billion by 2032, chatbots are now becoming key drivers of business success.
Ecommerce customer service chatbots help you deliver personalized customer experiences that boost satisfaction, lower support costs, and drive more sales.
📚Read more: 10 Best AI Tools for Ecommerce Businesses
Benefits of using an AI customer service chatbot
ChatGPT may be the AI chatbot that introduced the general public to the capabilities of generative AI, but business leaders have known about the potential for some time. According to a Zendesk report, 90% of customer experience (CX) leaders believe that 80% of issues will be resolved without a human within the next few years.
Here are key benefits of using AI customer support for online stores:
Omnichannel support
You can deploy AI chatbots across websites, social media platforms, mobile apps, messaging apps, and even voice assistants to support your customers wherever they need it. This allows you to have unified customer support for your omnichannel ecommerce strategy.
Customers who receive high-quality omnichannel experiences are 3.6 times more likely to purchase additional products and services, and these customers deliver 1.6 times higher lifetime value compared to those with lower-quality experiences.
For more on how to turn chats into sales, check out our guide to conversational commerce.
24/7 availability
AI chatbots can work around the clock to help shoppers late at night, on weekends, or during busy sales periods. As a result, 90% of companies report faster complaint resolution after adding AI customer service chatbots. Also, note that bots now automate up to 80% of routine support tasks.
If human support is needed outside of regular business hours, the chatbot can gather contact information and have a human agent respond when they return.
This always-on support improves your key customer support metrics:
- First response time drops from minutes to seconds since bots can answer queries instantly.
- Answered-within-SLA rates stay high, even when human agents are offline.
- Average handle time (AHT) shrinks as bots resolve simple issues or collect details before handing off to a person.
Read more: How To Calculate First Response Time and Improve Your FRT
Reduced wait times
According to the State of Service report by Salesforce, 78% of customer service professionals say that today’s customers seem more rushed than they used to. To meet these rising expectations for speed and convenience, AI chatbots can provide instant resolution to many common and repetitive customer queries without human intervention.
Improved self-service options
According to Help Scout, 69% of consumers try to solve issues for themselves before contacting a support team. By integrating self-service options such as an FAQ or knowledge base articles with your customer service chatbot, your bot can help customers more quickly and easily find the information they’re looking for.
Consistent user experience
Customizing the bot to embody your brand’s tone and voice can offer consistent support and on-brand experiences across customers, channels, and interactions.
This consistency directly impacts key ecommerce metrics:
- Customer experience: 79% of customers expect consistent service across departments. When brands deliver that experience, the CX scores rise and consequently lead to higher customer loyalty and revenue.
- Customer retention: “Customer-obsessed” brands retain customers 51% better than others.
- Repurchase rates: 88% of shoppers say great service makes them more likely to buy again.
For more ideas, see our guide to AI-powered customer experience.
📚Read more: AI Customer Experience: 11 Strategies for Business Success in 2025
Increased sales and conversion rates
AI chatbots aren’t just cost-saving tools; they can also drive revenue growth. For example, chatbots can remove checkout friction by offering instant answers, guided selling, and personalized offers. This helps you improve your conversion rates and revenue per session.
Similarly, you can increase your average order value (AOV) by triggering relevant cross-sell and upsell offers on the checkout page. McKinsey reports that retailers can increase the basket size by 2% to 4% by showing personalized product recommendations with generative AI chatbots.
How to use AI chatbots in customer service
Customer service is one of the most common uses for chatbots, and survey data from Tidio shows that 60% of business owners think chatbots help them improve customer experience.
What can AI chatbots bring to customer service? While they can’t replace human customer service agents entirely, there are a few impactful ways AI chatbots can benefit customers and businesses alike:
Free up human agents
AI chatbots can be serious multitaskers, handling common queries from multiple customers simultaneously. Not only that, but they can automate tasks such as order processing, account management, or password resets. Human agents can then focus on more complex issues or customer inquiries requiring a human touch.
Provide multilingual support
By using natural language processing and neural machine translation engines, AI chatbots can support customers in their preferred language while helping businesses expand their global reach. The number of supported languages varies by platform or provider, though most support dozens of languages and regularly add more.
Offer personalized recommendations
AI chatbots can provide personalized product recommendations based on a customer’s shopping history, interests, and interactions with the bot. They can access customer information such as browsing and conversation history while simultaneously analyzing real-time voice or text input to provide relevant product information and personalized suggestions. They can even cross-sell or upsell when appropriate.
Advanced AI chatbots can also work as virtual shopping assistants. Instead of just responding to questions, they guide customers through a quick needs analysis by asking things like, “Are you looking for a dress for a casual weekend party or a specific event?” or “What shade are you interested in?” Based on the answers, the bot suggests a tailored shortlist and can even compare products side by side.

The results are also remarkable: When Sephora added a chatbot-guided shopping experience, it saw a 25% increase in average order value.
Better understand the customer journey
With every interaction, an AI chatbot gathers valuable information about your customers and their journeys. Not only can they collect and access information on a user’s browsing history or previous interactions across multiple channels, but chatbots can use this data to understand your customers’ preferences, shopping behavior, and pain points. These actionable insights can better support their journey and improve the customer experience.
Support conversational commerce
You can deploy AI chatbot solutions across multiple channels, including messaging apps such as Messenger, WhatsApp, Telegram, and WeChat. AI chatbots can support conversational commerce by meeting consumers where they are online and offering a seamless experience.
Instead of waiting for customers to reach out, these chatbots can proactively engage them with helpful prompts (e.g., “need sizing help?”) and guide them through the shopping journey.
Here are some examples for different niches:
- Fashion: The chatbot conducts a style-quiz and suggests a complete look with outfits, then links directly to checkout for each item in the look.
- Beauty: The bot analyzes previous purchases, skin-tone inputs, and real-time selfies (where permitted) to recommend the perfect lip shade or foundation, and upsell complementary products.
- Electronics: The chatbot asks about intended use (e.g., “gaming, work, or travel?”) and budget, then narrows hundreds of laptop SKUs to a tailored short-list. This can help reduce decision fatigue and nudge customers to higher-margin upgrades.
📚Read more:What Is Conversational Commerce? Definition and Guide
Post-purchase ecommerce support
Ecommerce chatbots don’t stop helping once a sale is made. They act as your 24/7 concierge for everything that happens after checkout:
- Order tracking: Shoppers can ask “where’s my order?” on any channel and instantly get real-time tracking updates. They don’t need to search emails or wait on hold.
- Returns and exchanges: Bots can verify orders, explain your return policy, generate prepaid labels, and even book carrier pickups, which makes returns quick and hassle-free.
- Product support: For tech products or cosmetics, chatbots can share how-to videos, shade guides, or troubleshooting tips based on the item purchased. This helps customers start using your products more quickly.
By handling post-purchase questions fast, chatbots improve customer satisfaction (CSAT) score, reduce repetitive support tickets, and help boost repeat purchases.
📚Read more:Post Purchase Emails: 9 Examples and Tips For Your Business
11 best AI chatbots for customer service
- Shopify Inbox
- Zowie
- Botsonic
- Botsify
- Ada
- Giosg
- Netomi
- Drift (Salesloft)
- Fin (Intercom)
- Zendesk
- Certainly
Various versions of chatbots have been used in customer service for decades. Still, AI has drastically expanded chatbots’ usefulness, and there is a quickly growing selection of AI bots and all-in-one, AI-powered customer service platforms.
Here are 11 of the best customer service chatbots designed to support your team and help your customers:
1. Shopify Inbox
Model(s): A combination of Shopify's proprietary data and the world’s leading large language models (LLMs)
Features: Live chat inside Shopify admin, AI‑powered instant answers and suggested replies, product recommendations, order and cart visibility, automated greetings/FAQs, discount sharing, 20‑language support, multichannel inbox (online store, Instagram, Facebook Messenger, email)
Pricing: Free for all Shopify plans
Shopify Inbox is Shopify’s native chat solution that layers Shopify Magic AI onto real‑time storefront data so businesses can respond in seconds. Agents see what a shopper is browsing or has in their cart, drop product links or coupon codes in chat, and let AI draft or fully automate answers to common questions.
Businesses that reply quickly with Inbox see conversion rates jump by as much as 69% and turn conversations into checkouts, all from one unified admin.
2. Zowie
Model(s): Leading foundation models from OpenAI, Google, Anthropic, and Meta along with its proprietary Zowie X2 model
Features: AI chatbot, multilingual support, automated email management, upselling, personal shopper
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Zowie is an AI-powered customer service platform offering an AI chatbot designed specifically for ecommerce brands. Zowie’s AI chatbot pulls customer data such as location, behavior, and purchase history to deliver personalized experiences across channels. It has add-on features, such as a shopping assistant, designed to increase conversions and average order value.
Zowie’s bot has access to more than 75 specific use cases for ecommerce and can be customized for your brand’s tone and voice. It also integrates seamlessly with Shopify stores.
3. Botsonic
Model(s): Proprietary AI Model Gateway called GPT Router
Features: Automated customer support, AI-enhanced conversational commerce, automated employee support, data training and customization
Pricing: Starting at $19 per month
The makers of the AI-powered writing platform Writesonic designed Botsonic, a customizable no-code AI chatbot builder that you can build, train, and deploy across multiple digital channels. Botsonic’s AI chatbot can handle more than 1,000 chats simultaneously and features built-in safeguards to eliminate off-topic conversations and misleading responses when resolving customer service inquiries. It can also offer personalized product recommendations.
4. Botsify
Model(s): OpenAI’s GPT-4, GPT-4.5, and other generative AI models
Features: No-code AI chatbot builder, omnichannel support, multilingual, lead capture, analytics
Pricing: Starting at $49 per month
Botsify is a no-code bot-builder that supports conversational commerce in 95 languages across websites, Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp, and Telegram. You can sync Botsify with Shopify stores so customers can browse your product catalog and even check out within the messaging app.
5. Ada
Model(s): Advanced LLMs from OpenAI, Anthropic, and Google Gemini
Features: No-code automation builder, AI agent management, multichannel deployment, multilingual, proprietary safety checks
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Ada is an AI-powered customer experience platform that has automated more than four billion conversations with its AI chatbot. It features voice AI and seamless bot-to-agent handoffs. Ada’s platform is backed by enterprise-grade global security and privacy standards, and when integrated with your Shopify store its chatbot can provide customers with shipping updates and other order details.
6. Giosg
Model(s): OpenAI’s GPT-4, GPT-4.5, and other generative AI models
Features: AI chatbot & assistants, no-code bot builder, interactive content, visualized performance reporting, design and integration support
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Giosg is a sales acceleration platform that aims to help businesses create exceptional customer experiences through live chat, AI chatbots, and interactive content. Its AI chatbot offers features for customizing when and where customers see the bot and built-in A/B testing to compare different bot design configurations. It also offers optimization and design support to ensure the bot fits your website’s aesthetic. You can integrate Giosg’s chatbot with your Shopify store, and they offer open application programming interfaces (APIs) for custom integrations.
7. Netomi
Model(s): Combination of various LLM models
Features: Automatic resolution, agentic OS for enterprise CX, multichannel supporting email, chat, voice, and social, sentiment analysis
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Netomi’s AI-powered customer experience platform helps companies resolve customer service tickets via email, chat, messaging, and voice. With an advanced analytics dashboard, you can access real-time performance data to tweak and optimize your bot as needed. Its AI-powered discovery engine can help you pinpoint the highest impact areas for chatbot automation. You can also integrate Netomi with your Shopify store.
8. Drift (Salesloft)
Model(s): GPT-4–powered generative AI (plus Salesloft proprietary models)
Features: AI chat agent, real-time lead qualification, account deanonymization, live-rep routing, ROI reporting, Salesloft Rhythm integration
Price: Contact for pricing
Drift (now part of the Salesloft revenue platform) offers an AI chatbot to greet high-intent website visitors, answer product questions, and qualify leads instantly. The bot identifies anonymous visitors by pulling company and location data, scores their engagement, and routes qualified leads directly to sales reps using Salesloft Rhythm. With built-in integrations for Salesloft Cadence, CRMs, and calendars, Drift becomes a full conversational sales hub for B2B teams.
9. Fin (Intercom)
Model(s): Patented Fin AI engine
Features: AI agent system, training capabilities, testing features, custom performance reporting, live chat transfer
Pricing: 14-day free trial, contact for pricing
Intercom is a software solution that combines an AI chatbot, help desk, and proactive support to streamline customer communications across email, SMS, and more. Intercom’s AI chatbot, Fin, works natively with Intercom’s inbox, ticketing, messenger, reporting, and other features to provide an AI-enhanced, all-in-one customer service platform that you can integrate with your Shopify store.
10. Zendesk
Model(s): Combination of third-party LLMs with Zendesk’s proprietary model
Features: AI agents, copilot, no-code bot builder, omnichannel support, integrations, real-time analytics
Pricing: Starting at $19 per agent per month
Customer service software provider Zendesk has trained its AI chatbot, Zendesk AI, on billions of customer service conversations. Its no-code bot-builder can handle a variety of customer queries on its own, and it can prepare your human agents with valuable insight on customer sentiment when a handoff occurs. Zendesk AI offers enterprise-grade security and privacy that you can sync with Shopify to pull pertinent data from your ecommerce store.
11. Certainly
Model(s): Combination of third-party LLMs with the proprietary model
Features: AI agents and chatbots, multilingual support, customer data collection, ecommerce solutions, personalized interactions, performance reporting
Pricing: Contact for pricing
Certainly aims to provide an all-in-one chatbot platform for ecommerce. Built from the ground up with Shopify merchants in mind, Certainly offers deep industry knowledge, ecommerce-focused AI, and bespoke industry data to help you create better customer relationships. Offering support in more than 100 languages, it can seamlessly integrate with Shopify and the rest of your tech stack.
Real-world examples of AI chatbots for customer service
Here are the examples of Shopify merchants who have successfully implemented AI chatbots and are driving great results.
Cowboy
Electric bike maker Cowboy uses an AI chatbot widget which is always visible and easy to find so website visitors can seek out the support they need quickly. The bot offers multilingual support and order-status updates, and immediately enables customers to self-serve by alerting them to the company’s extensive FAQ knowledge base.

Cowboy’s bot also offers the option to connect to a live agent after each question, making it easy for customers to speak with a human representative if that will help them more effectively resolve their issue.
Underoutfit
Underoutfit, a fast-growing intimates brand, deployed an AI concierge to help shoppers with sizing questions and follow up on partial checkouts. This helped them increase their conversion rate by 8% and average order value by 7%.

Heavys
Heavys, a premium headphones brand, uses AI chatbot concierge to answer product-setup questions, handle pre-purchase objections, and nudge potential buyers toward completing their orders.

Since launching the AI assistant, Heavys has converted nearly 25% of abandoned carts into sales and increased conversion rate by 12%. Also, 95% of the support inquiries at Heavys are now handled by AI bots.
Preparing for voice-enabled AI chatbots in ecommerce
Smart speakers and voice assistants are quickly becoming shopping tools, not just search helpers. The global voice-commerce market is projected to reach $714.5 billion in 2034 with a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of nearly 27%, according to a report by Market.us.
The same report also suggests that voice shopping will be a major growth driver for ecommerce, accounting for more than 30% of the global ecommerce sales by 2030.
You can get ahead by adapting your AI chatbots for voice commerce—making them understand spoken product questions, place reorders, and confirm shipping updates. This way, you’ll tap into the fast-growing “couch-to-cart” shopping trend before it becomes mainstream.
📚Read more: Voice Shopping: Your Business's New Best Friend
Measuring ROI: Chatbot metrics for ecommerce success
A chatbot’s value shows up in two areas: customer service efficiency and revenue growth. Track both to measure and improve your ROI.
Here are the AI chatbot key performance indicators (KPIs) you should track:
KPI | Why it matters | How to calculate/monitor |
---|---|---|
First response time (FRT) | Instant answers are a core promise of AI. Shorter FRT correlates with higher CSAT and lower abandonment. | Average seconds from customer message to bot reply. The lower, the better. |
Self-service resolution rate | Shows how many tickets the bot fully resolves without hand-offs to human agents. This directly leads to labor cost savings. | Bot-resolved chats ÷ total chats. Pair with a cost-per-resolution figure to quantify savings. |
Customer satisfaction (CSAT) score | Even automated service has to feel good. CSAT links directly to retention and LTV. | Post-chat thumbs-up or 1–5 survey, averaged daily. |
Conversion-rate lift | Chatbots that guide shoppers or surface offers should boost checkouts. | (Sessions with bot ÷ orders) vs. (sessions without bot ÷ orders). Attach revenue per session for context. |
Average order value (AOV) uplift | Recommendation and upsell flows push basket size higher. This increases overall sales. | (AOV with bot) − (baseline AOV) ÷ baseline AOV. |
📚Read more:8 Customer Service Metrics To Track and Optimize
Integrating Shopify’s native AI tools with third-party chatbots
Shopify’s built-in AI tools like Shopify Magic and Flow automate key ecommerce functions such as product descriptions, email subject lines, order routing, and fraud detection.
Third-party chatbots (such as Zowie, Drift, Intercom) complement this by managing real-time conversations with customers on your website, SMS, and social channels.
Here’s a quick rundown of Shopify’s key native AI tools and how they can work with third-party chatbots to boost your ecommerce store’s performance:
Shopify’s native AI tool | What it does in Shopify | How a chatbot enhances it |
---|---|---|
Shopify Magic | Auto-writes SEO-friendly titles, descriptions, and metafields. | Bot uses this content to answer product questions or compare variants. |
Shopify Flow | Triggers automations like tagging VIPs or sending restock alerts. | Bot triggers Flow actions (e.g., “back-in-stock” notifications) when customers ask about out-of-stock items. |
Shopify Inbox | Handles live chat and order lookups natively. | Chatbot hands off to Inbox for human help, keeping the full chat history inside Shopify Admin. |
Pro tip: Add your chatbot widget via your Shopify theme or app, and give it API access (Storefront or Admin API with relevant permissions). This lets your bot pull live product data, track orders, and update customer profiles so that Shopify Magic and your chatbot work together as one smart system.
AI chatbot customer service FAQ
Can you use AI for customer service?
Yes, you can use AI for several customer service functions. For example, you can use an AI chatbot as a customer-facing tool that offers 24/7 multilingual support. It can significantly reduce the number of simple, repetitive questions that human support agents must field. AI can also automate routine tasks, streamline workflows, and provide valuable insights into your customer service operation.
How do you choose an AI chatbot for your business?
AI chatbots have many use cases for business, so start by thinking about why you need one and your goals for using it. Next, consider the chatbot’s readiness. Some chatbots can be built without coding knowledge or other technical support, whereas others are more custom-built solutions. Consider also the features, total investment needed, and available integrations of any chatbot you consider.
What is the best AI chatbot for customer service?
The best AI chatbot for customer service will depend on the nature of your business. Various AI chatbots are available for customer service, and some have been built with specific industries or use cases in mind. Some of the most popular chatbots offer no-code bot-building capabilities, multilingual support, multichannel deployment, and business system integrations. When comparing options, explore the features, readiness, and investment needed as three top-level considerations.
Can I use ChatGPT for customer service?
Yes, many vendors (e.g., Intercom Fin, Drift, Zowie) embed OpenAI’s GPT-4 or GPT-4o models behind a custom interface, safeguards, and ecommerce integrations. You can also build a private ChatGPT-powered bot via Shopify’s Storefront API and add guardrails (knowledge base, tone rules) to keep replies accurate and on-brand.
How do you make an AI chatbot for customer service?
Here are the steps to make an AI chatbot for ecommerce customer support:
- Define the goal: For example, automating routine queries, instant support, sales assistance, etc.
- Choose a platform: No-code builders (Botsonic, Ada) or custom code with the Shopify Admin + Storefront APIs.
- Import content: FAQs, product data, and policies to train the bot.
- Set guardrails: Hand-off to human agent, profanity filter, order-lookup permissions.
- Deploy & iterate: Add the script snippet to your theme, monitor KPIs (resolution rate, CSAT), and refine prompts/flows weekly.
What is an example of a chatbot customer service?
For example, an online retailer uses an AI chatbot on its website. When a customer asks, “Where is my order,” the chatbot accesses order data, provides a real-time update, and offers to provide an order-tracking link. If the question is too complex, it connects the customer to a live support agent.