Adding an AI chatbot to your business: how hard is it really?
What it takes to launch a chatbot that gives useful, accurate answers — and where the real effort goes.
Easier than it used to be
Language models have made chatbots far more capable than the scripted bots of a few years ago. Connecting a model to a chat window takes days. Making it answer your customers accurately, safely and in your tone of voice is where a real project begins.
The three kinds of chatbot
- FAQ assistant: answers from your help articles and policies. Usually 4–6 weeks.
- Account-aware assistant: also looks up orders, bookings or tickets for signed-in users. Usually 6–10 weeks.
- Action-taking agent: changes bookings, creates tickets or updates records with confirmation steps. Planned in phases.
Where the effort really goes
The model is the easy part. Most of the work is in:
- Preparing clean, current source content the bot can rely on.
- Deciding what the bot must not answer and when to hand over to a person.
- Connecting securely to your systems with the user's permissions.
- Testing on real questions and monitoring answers after launch.
How we build them in .NET
We use Semantic Kernel and Microsoft.Extensions.AI in ASP.NET Core, Azure AI Search for retrieval and a model hosted in your own Azure subscription. The design is provider-independent, so you can change models later without rewriting the application.
A low-risk way to start
Pick one high-volume, well-documented topic — delivery questions, opening hours, product specifications — and launch a focused assistant for it. Measure how many conversations it resolves, then expand. Our AI Pilot package is designed exactly for this first step.