A chatbot is a channel: it answers questions and is judged on how many it deflects. An AI employee is a role: it is given a job, a scope of authority, an escalation path and a destination for the records it creates, and it is judged on outcomes — leads captured, appointments booked, orders completed.
Both surfaces take a typed question and return an answer. The difference starts after the answer. A chatbot's work ends there. An AI employee is expected to move the conversation toward a defined result and to leave a record behind when it does.
That is why the two are budgeted differently. A chatbot is a support cost. An AI employee sits with the roles that generate revenue.
For a documentation site or a pure support queue where the goal is fewer tickets, a chatbot is the cheaper and better fit. The case for an AI employee starts where the conversation is worth money — a booking, a quote, a considered purchase, an after-hours enquiry a competitor would otherwise take.
No. The name is cosmetic; the difference is scope of authority, escalation rules and the records it writes into business systems.
Usually yes, because the support job is a subset of what a scoped role handles.
In CaaS deployments, always — a visible disclosure mark plus an append-only provenance record.
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