Building an AI Chatbot That Actually Works: Features That Matter Most

With the flood of chatbot tools out there, the hardest part isn’t launching one, it’s choosing what to prioritize so it’s actually useful. In my experience, the biggest differentiators aren’t flashy UI elements or overly complex flows, but things like how well the bot understands context, how easily it stays up to date, and whether you can trust where its answers are coming from. A chatbot that confidently gives the wrong answer does more harm than good.One practice that’s stood out to me is grounding responses in real source material instead of letting the model improvise. That’s something platforms like De⁤nser lean into by tying answers back to existing documents, which makes a noticeable difference in reliability and customer trust. Curious what others here consider non-negotiable features. Is it accuracy, integrations, analytics, handoff to humans, or something else you learned the hard way?