The biggest lesson for me has been that AI chatbot can mean very different things. Some are basically smarter FAQ bots, while others can actually take actions and work with your existing systems. That difference matters a lot once you’re in production.

For a small business, I’d probably avoid choosing based purely on the number of features. If the team can’t easily update the bot, review failed answers, and improve it without needing a developer, most of those features won’t matter much.