Conversational Commerce

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Glossary

Conversational Commerce

In one line: Conversational commerce is selling through messaging — WhatsApp, Instagram DMs, live chat — with AI handling routine questions, recommendations, and orders.

Why it’s growing

Especially in markets where messaging is already how customers communicate (Southeast Asia, India, Latin America), shoppers don’t want to fill out web checkout forms — they want to ask a question and get an answer. AI now makes it economically possible to staff those conversations 24/7 without an army of agents.

What AI handles

  • Product questions (“do you have this in size M”)
  • Order status (“when will it arrive”)
  • Recommendation (“what goes with this”)
  • Order placement, including payment links and shipping
  • Returns and refund requests

Humans handle the complex 10–20% — complaints, custom requests, anything sensitive.

Tools

WATI, Sleekflow, Respond.io, and similar platforms specialize in WhatsApp commerce. Tidio and Crisp cover website chat with messaging integrations. Most have AI assistant features bundled now.

Related terms

Chatbot vs AI Assistant, Generative AI, Personalization

Want to set up conversational commerce?

See AI for home businesses and AI for SMEs.

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