Welcome to the forefront of conversational AI as we explore the fascinating world of AI chatbots in our dedicated blog series. Discover the latest advancements, applications, and strategies that propel the evolution of chatbot technology. From enhancing customer interactions to streamlining business processes, these articles delve into the innovative ways artificial intelligence is shaping the landscape of automated conversational agents. Whether you’re a business owner, developer, or simply intrigued by the future of interactive technology, join us on this journey to unravel the transformative power and endless possibilities of AI chatbots.
AI chatbots have gotten a ton of attention since the launch of OpenAI's ChatGPT, and they seem to have become what most people think of when they think of artificial intelligence.
However, ChatGPT is far from the only artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot on the market, and its launch sparked a parade of competitors, some of whom seemed to be waiting for such a moment to unveil their own large language models (LLMs).
In this article, we'll discuss what an AI chatbot is, review some AI chatbot stocks you can invest in, and explore whether you should invest in AI chatbot technology today. If you're wondering about the best AI chatbots on the market, keep reading.
A chatbot is an AI-based computer program that uses natural language processing to communicate with humans using text. Chatbots are a common tool for customer service, internet search, and other routine tasks for internet users. Businesses also use AI chatbots internally to help automate workflows and other tasks.
Their utility has evolved in recent years as artificial intelligence has improved, and large language models have been trained to process complex questions and understand nuance. You can even make your own AI chatbot using the Python coding language.
As AI chatbots have improved, the market potential for the technology has increased, as can be seen in OpenAI's recent valuation at $500 billion billion, with investors including Microsoft (MSFT -0.31%), Nvidia, and Softbank (OTC:SFTB.Y).
With OpenAI demonstrating the capability of AI chatbots, investor interest in the technology has soared. Keep reading to see how you can get exposure to AI stocks in the chatbot space.
Through its partnership with OpenAI and ChatGPT, Microsoft has established itself as a clear leader in the AI chatbot race.
The company is working quickly to integrate ChatGPT into a wide range of its products. That includes Azure, its cloud infrastructure service, the new Bing, and its Edge browser. It's also reportedly working on adding ChatGPT features to its Office suite, which includes products like Word, Excel, PowerPoint, and Outlook.
However, Microsoft's biggest move in AI chatbots may be the launch of its own Copilot, a digital assistant available across Microsoft's applications, though some analysts believe that Copilot lags behind the competition.
Microsoft CEO Satya Nadella has said on multiple occasions that he sees AI as a platform shift, and the company has doubled down on its relationship with OpenAI after investing more than $13 billion in the startup over the years. After a recent restructuring at OpenAI, Microsoft now owns 27% of OpenAI, a stake that was valued at $135 billion in late 2025.
After his company missed out on the shift to mobile, Nadella is committed to not making the same mistake twice. Expect Microsoft to continue to spend aggressively on ChatGPT, Copilot, Azure, and other AI tools.
If you're looking to invest in ChatGPT, Microsoft gives you the most direct way to do so.
Alphabet (GOOG +3.66%)(GOOGL +3.95%) has been investing in artificial intelligence for years. It acquired DeepMind, an AI research lab, in 2014, and it's spent billions on its autonomous vehicle division, Waymo.
After the release of ChatGPT in November 2022, Alphabet moved quickly to counter what seemed to be the most serious threat to Google Search yet, calling a "Code Red" meeting and bringing back founders Sergey Brin and Larry Page to formulate a strategy.
After some missteps, Google launched Gemini in December 2023, which is available through Google's search bar. It's also added AI overviews to Google Search and enabled AI mode on search, allowing users to tap into the power of Gemini.
Alphabet is monetizing Gemini in a number of ways, including selling premium subscriptions, offering application programming interfaces (APIs) for developers to use, and integrating it with Google's Cloud Platform. Currently, Gemini seems like a way for Alphabet to protect its monopoly in search, and it could help monetize traffic that doesn't generate ads.
Amazon (AMZN +2.56%) hasn't found success with its own chatbot. The company has launched Amazon Q, a generative AI assistant, and Rufus, a shopping assistant.
However, Amazon is also a major investor in Anthropic, the maker of the chatbot Claude, which is considered by some to be the closest challenger to ChatGPT, and may have even surpassed it with new products like Claude Code and Claude Cowork. In November 2024, Amazon said it would invest $4 billion in Anthropic after investing $4 billion in the company earlier in the year. As of July 2025, there were reports circulating that it could make another multi-billion-dollar investment in the AI start-up. Amazon hasn't added to its stake in Anthropic, but the AI start-up did raise $15 billion from Microsoft and Nvidia in November 2025, lifting its valuation to around $350 billion and indicating that competition for AI partners is fierce.
As part of the previous investment, Anthropic will use Amazon's Trainium and Inferentia chips to train its AI models. Amazon's custom chips, which include Trainium and Graviton have now reached an annual revenue run rate of $10 billion, showing its chips business has become significant.
Amazon has also invested in Bedrock, a managed cloud service in Amazon Web Services (AWS) that builds AI applications like chatbots.
In November 2025, Amazon founder Jeff Bezos launched an AI start-up called Project Prometheus. While it appears to be more focused on physical AI rather than generative AI-like chatbots, it wouldn't be surprising to see Amazon team up with Bezos's start-up in the future.
Meta Platforms (META +1.66%) has invested significant resources in artificial intelligence as well, but most of that funding has gone toward recommendation AI, the algorithms that determine the content served to users on Facebook and Instagram.
More recently, the company launched LLaMa, an open-source large language model. Though LLaMa is not a chatbot, it powers Meta's chatbot, Meta AI, which is available across Meta's properties, including Facebook, Instagram, Messenger, and WhatsApp. Meta AI reached a milestone of more than 1 billion monthly active users in May 2025.
CEO Mark Zuckerberg sees conversational and generative AI as a huge potential market, and the company plans to continue investing in chatbots and related areas. It's been aggressively hiring AI researchers, and it acquired 49% of Scale AI, a data-labeling specialist, for $14 billion in June. It also plans to significantly ramp up capital expenditures in 2026 to $115 billion-$135 billion.
If you're thinking of buying publicly traded stocks with exposure to chatbots, just follow these steps to make a purchase:
Like the rest of AI, chatbots are changing and getting better. Here are some future trends to watch with the breakthrough technology.
AI chatbots have use large language models, which are trained on large volumes of text and use natural language processing to interpret questions and comments, and respond accordingly.
Large language models are based on machine learning, a core AI discipline, where they have been trained on enough examples of language that they can chat with humans and intelligently answer questions.
Large language models use deep learning techniques and are trained on massive datasets that break down text into tokens and use neural networks to understand that text. Using probabilistic distributions, it then predicts the most natural response.
AI chatbot technology is still in its early stages, but it seems clear from the billions being spent on it by the world's biggest tech companies that this will be a significant computing platform.
There's a wide range of applications for a product like ChatGPT. Its potential to disrupt internet search, a market worth hundreds of billions of dollars, shows the value of AI chat. Let's take a look at some of the benefits and risks of investing in AI technology.
Benefits:
Risks:
While picking a winner is difficult at this point, it makes sense to gain exposure to the technology given its potential. Like any emerging technology, investing in AI chatbots carries some risk, but many of the stocks above are already trading at reasonable valuations. If you're interested in investing in chatbot stocks, another option is to invest in an AI exchange-traded fund (ETF).
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Jeremy Bowman has positions in Amazon and Meta Platforms. The Motley Fool has positions in and recommends Alphabet, Amazon, Baidu, Meta Platforms, and Microsoft. The Motley Fool has a disclosure policy.
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Baidu (BIDU -0.95%) is often known as the Chinese Google, and the company's move into AI chat shows that it has more in common with Alphabet than just search.
In February 2023, Baidu joined the fray in AI chat, announcing it would also launch its own chatbot to complement its search engine. Known as ERNIE bot, the chatbot was released in March 2023. As of Jan. 2026, the company said it had 200 monthly active users.
Baidu first began developing its language model in 2019, and the technology has advanced significantly since. It recently announced ERNIE 5.0, which can jointly model text, images, audio, and videos.
ERNIE was launched as a standalone application first, but eventually will merge with its search engine, choosing chatbot-generated results rather than just links. Baidu made Ernie open-source in June 2025.
The company is also investing aggressively in other AI technologies like self-driving cars and semiconductors, and it views artificial intelligence as a valuable growth market.
