What is an AI assistant?

“Alexa, can you help me pick an AI assistant to help schedule meetings?”

“Siri: what's an AI assistant?” 

If you’re reading an article instead of asking your phone, it looks like AI assistants don’t rule your life – yet. 

But AI assistants have moved far beyond the voice-automated chatbots on our smartphones. There are AI assistants to help you complete any task, from debugging code to writing music.

Here’s a quick guide to AI assistants, including the 6 best AI assistants.

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What is an AI assistant?

AI assistants are a type of AI agent that use artificial intelligence to perform tasks, answer questions, and assist with various tasks.

AI assistants typically use natural language processing (NLP) to understand input from users and respond with helpful information or actions. 

They’re often used to automate tasks like:

• Setting reminders
• Scheduling meetings
• Answering customer queries
• Managing complex business processes
• Data management 

While you might be familiar with Siri and Alexa, the AI wave has brought a whole new host of tools to automate daily tasks.

How do AI assistants work?

AI assistants use AI to understand and respond to what you say or type. When you give a command – like asking for the weather or telling it to add a lead to your CRM – they use NLP to figure out what you mean.

Once they understand your request, the AI assistant either finds the right information or completes a task (like reporting the weather or registering the new lead). They can connect to different apps and tools to make this happen.

Over time, AI assistants get better at understanding you because they learn from past interactions. They can even recognize your voice and adapt to your preferences.

Types and examples of AI assistants 

Given their broad definition, there are a lot of ways to put AI assistants to work. Here are a few of the most popular:

AI writing assistants

AI writing assistants help users create written content, from drafting to editing. They can generate ideas, suggest sentence structures, correct grammar, and even tailor the tone of a piece based on the intended audience. 

These tools are particularly useful for content creators and marketers, but let’s be real – most people write a bit for their jobs. Even your emails can be enhanced with AI writing assistants.

Examples include:

• Quillbot: a rewriting and paraphrasing software
• Copy.ai: a text generation tool
• ChatGPT: a general AI chatbot with a knack for content creation
• Jasper: a software suited for writing emails and social media

AI scheduling assistants 

AI scheduling assistants are tools that automate and streamline the process of setting appointments, managing calendars, and coordinating meetings. 

They use AI to find optimal times, suggest meeting slots, handle rescheduling, and send reminders. 

Examples include:

• Scheduler AI: a customizable AI agent
• Clara: an AI-driven virtual assistant that schedules meetings directly from your emails
• Kronologic: a customer meeting orchestrator 
• Clockwise: an AI-powered time management calendar 

AI personal assistants

The broadest category of AI assistants, AI personal assistants can accomplish a wide range of tasks – including scheduling or sending emails. 

They’re designed to help users manage day-to-day tasks, such as setting reminders, sending messages, making calls, or providing information on demand. 

Examples include:

• Siri: Apple’s built-in personal assistant
• Google Assistant: Google products’ built-in personal assistant
• Alexa: Amazon products’ built-in personal assistant

AI work assistant 

These types of AI assistants are typically used in the workplace – they can automate routine tasks, manage workflows, and provide support for complex workflows. 

Most of the time, AI work assistants are integrated with various business tools and software, like CRMs, knowledge databases, or messaging tools like Slack.

Examples include:

• Microsoft Copilot: a generative AI chatbot
• Custom AI agents

AI coding assistant

AI coding assistants help developers write, debug, and optimize code. They use AI to understand and generate code based on user input. 

These assistants can suggest code completions, catch errors, offer fixes, and even generate entire functions or snippets. 

Examples include:

• GitHub Copilot: a code completion and automatic programming tool
• Custom AI agents
• Codeium: an AI toolkit for code developers
• ChatGPT: a general chatbot that understands all coding languages 
• Code GPT: a chatbot trained on coding data that can generate code

AI customer support assistants

AI customer support assistants automate routine customer interactions, like answering common questions or resolving straightforward issues through chat or voice systems. 

The popularity of these customer support chatbots is largely due to their 24/7 service, multilingual nature, and cost-effectiveness. 

These assistants are widely used as AI tools in e-commerce to manage high volumes of customer queries efficiently (and free up human agents to focus on more complex matters). 

Examples include:

• Every AI chatbot that’s ever asked if you need assistance while you’re trying to cancel your wifi service

AI healthcare assistants

AI healthcare assistants benefit both patients and healthcare providers – they streamline processes for both parties, like retrieving records and managing follow-ups. 

They’re also used to provide reminders about medication or appointments, process large amounts of medical data, and assist in diagnosing (especially for patients accessing services from home).

Examples include:

• Bespoke AI agents commissioned by hospitals and health centers
• Docus.ai: an AI chatbot to assist in health-related questions via webchat

AI shopping assistants

AI shopping assistants go beyond simple product recommendations – they help users navigate the entire shopping experience. 

Shopping assistants can help with size and style preferences, compare prices across different retailers, and manage orders (including taking payments). 

By analyzing individual customer behavior and preferences, these assistants offer a more tailored experience, only possible at scale in the age of AI.

Examples include:

• Custom AI agents
• Rufus: Amazon’s shopping assistant

The 6 best AI assistants

The best AI assistant is one that fits your exact needs, whether it’s writing emails or debugging code or making your appointments.

To keep it fair, we’ll list the best AI assistant for the top 6 categories: writing, personal, work, scheduling, coding, and customer support:

1. ChatGPT

While it’s not exclusively built for writing, its impressive breadth and ability earn ChatGPT a spot at the top. 

No matter the task or tone needed, ChatGPT excels at following content creation instructions. Use it for emails, or use prompt chaining to create more complex outputs (like reports or essays).

2. Google Assistant

If you need to set alarms or reminders, or schedule an appointment, Google Assistant is currently your best option. 

Touting the best voice recognition of the major players – we’re talking Siri, Alexa, and Cortana – it’s the best hands-free option. It can provide travel information, recommend restaurants nearby, and give driving instructions. 

3. Microsoft Copilot (or a custom AI agent)

Microsoft Copilot is capable of a litany of work-based tasks, from writing emails, to conducting research, to generating code.

Its strength comes from its integration into the entire Microsoft suite: Word, Excel, Outlook, Teams, PowerPoint. It suggests better grammar, creates presentations, and summarizes your Teams meetings.

But if Microsoft isn’t where you conduct most of your daily work – or if you want a levelled-up solution – building a bespoke AI agent is the way to go. 

Only a custom build allows you to connect to any platform or channel you use in your workflows, and it can be tailored to any task you want to automate – not just creating presentations and suggesting sentences.

4. GitHub Copilot

GitHub Copilot is popular for a reason. It’s integrated directly into popular code editors, and it offers real-time suggestions as you code. It can generate a line of code, generate a whole function, and even assist with documentation. 

I asked the two software developers who sit across from me what they thought of AI coding assistants. “GitHub Copilot is the sh*t,” they concurred. 

GitHub Copilot uses OpenAI Codex, a language model trained on public code, to provide contextualized suggestions and debugging assistance.

5. Custom AI agent

Customer experiences need to be differentiated, and so does your AI customer support assistant. 

While there are cut-and-paste solutions to deploy AI customer support, they’re largely unsuitable for professional, customized digital assistance. 

By selecting an AI building platform, you can design your custom support assistant to deliver on-brand and custom information to your customers, whether it’s on web, by phone, or via channels like WhatsApp or Facebook Messenger.

AI agents can suggest products, troubleshoot technical problems, cancel subscriptions and facilitate purchases, all without relying on external solutions or human intervention. 

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How to build an AI assistant

Depending on the tool you use, you can customize your AI assistant to help you with hyper-specific tasks. 

With the litany of AI building tools at your disposal, it’s not hard to build your own customized AI assistant.

Pick a platform

Unless you have a lot of time and high-level coding skills, you’ll want to jumpstart your build with an AI agent building platform.

These platforms offer pre-built tools, templates, and integrations that make it easier to get started without building everything from scratch. Pick a platform that matches your technical expertise and provides your needed flexibility – you can read about our top AI building platforms.

Design your AI assistant

Your AI assistant can be entirely unique, tailored to your specific needs (or the needs of your users). 

Your design should focus on a seamless end-user experience – even if that user is yourself! If you’re brand new to building AI agents, you can get started with our free Intro to Bot Building course.

While generalist AI chatbots like ChatGPT are perfect for some tasks, the benefit of an AI assistant is that it’s a custom design to fit your needs. 

Integrate and deploy

You’ll want your AI assistant to connect to any platform, channel or database that you want it to take action in. 

Some platforms will come with pre-built integrations that make it easy to hook up an AI assistant to Slack, Notion, or other platforms.

Once you’ve integrated your assistant, you’ll want to test out real-world scenarios by deploying it to whatever channel you’re most likely to use – webchat, WhatsApp, or another avenue.

Build an AI assistant today

The perfect AI assistant is the one customized for your unique workflows. 

Botpress is the only endless extensible platform for building AI assistants and AI agents. Our pre-built integrations and tutorial library make it easy to build from scratch.

Start building today. It’s free. 

For larger solutions, contact our sales team. 

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FAQ

What does an AI assistant do?

The capabilities of an AI assistant depend on its purpose. AI assistants can aid in recalling information, facilitating communication, or completing tasks.

How does an AI assistant work?

An AI assistant uses natural language processing (NLP) to process and understand user input, then follow up with relevant information or complete a task.

How expensive is an AI assistant?

Many AI assistants are free with other software (like Siri on your iPhone). AI assistants get more expensive the more advanced they become, and range from free to thousands of dollars.

What’s the best free AI assistant?

If you’ve already purchased software or hardware that comes with an AI assistant, you can likely use it for free. Otherwise, try building an AI assistant with a free AI building platform.