What is a bot? Using bots responsibly in your business

More than half of all internet traffic comes from bots. Some are helpful, like search engine crawlers or chat assistants. Others damage our online spaces, like spam bots and large-scale cyberattacks.

At their core, bots are software programs built to run automated tasks. In this guide, we’ll look at what bots are, the different types, how they can be useful, and how to manage the risks.

A bot is a computer program that runs tasks automatically without the need for ongoing human intervention. Some bots are simple and follow fixed rules, like scanning websites so they show up in Google search results. Others use AI, which allows them to adapt and handle more complex jobs, like answering customer questions in a chat.

Bots are designed to act like an assistant, emulating what a human might do, but much faster and on a larger scale. You’ll see them in everyday places like voice assistants on your phone, customer service chat windows, social media feeds, or even tools that flag suspicious login attempts.

As we’ve mentioned, traditional bots are built to follow rules. This makes them good at repetitive tasks; however, they aren’t able to handle more nuanced work.

AI agents are the next step above bots. They use machine learning and generative AI, which means they can adapt, reason, and work across multiple platforms.

In our latest State of IT: Security Report, we found that 79% of leaders said AI agents will bring new compliance challenges, but 80% also see them as a way to strengthen their defences.

AI agents are likely to have a significant impact on customer support. While traditional bots might have been able to help answer basic questions, an AI agent like Agentforce can now answer the question, check for additional details in your CRM, and complete tasks like triggering a refund or scheduling a follow-up message.

The chatbot market is valued at $15.57 billion in 2025 and projected to reach $46.64 billion by 2029 . Many of these bots play an important role in how we use the internet every day, while others create serious security problems. There are also bots that sit in the middle, not always harmful, but not necessarily helpful, either.

Here’s a quick snapshot of the difference between bots that are ‘good’ (helpful and productive) and bots that are a net bad.

Good bots are the ones that work behind the scenes to make your online experience better without you realising it. Search engine crawlers like Googlebot and Bingbot scan websites so they appear in search results. Other chatbots, such as those powered by Salesforce Service Cloud, help customers get answers quickly without waiting on hold or for an email response.

Bad bots are built to take advantage of systems. These kinds of attacks are expensive, with automated bot attacks costing businesses up to $186 billion a year , with $2 billion lost directly from Australian businesses in 2024.

Interestingly, the travel industry was the hardest hit in 2024, with a reported 27% of traffic coming from bad bots. In many cases, bots pretended to book flights and then abandoned the purchase, skewing airline pricing. Retail was the second most targeted sector (with 15% of bot traffic ), followed by education (11%).

Not all bots are clearly good or bad – it depends on how people use them. For example, social media bots can spread important news, but they’re also used to push misinformation. These bots aren’t inherently malicious, but they can distort the picture of what’s really happening online.

There is absolutely a space for the right bots to be used for good. Helpful bots can save time and help you get through more tedious work. However, there is a line that shouldn’t be crossed, and using bots in the wrong way can damage customer trust.

We found proof of this sentiment in our State of the AI Connected Customer report, where only 42% of customers said they trust businesses to use AI ethically, down from 58% in 2023.

We also found that customers expect safeguards. Around 71% want a human to validate AI output, and 73% want to know when they’re interacting with a bot. This makes sense; talking to an undisclosed bot can feel deceptive; however, when everything is out in the open, customers appreciate the fast, helpful responses.

Here are four steps you can take to make sure you use bots responsibly:

1. Be transparent. Be upfront when a customer is talking with a bot. Clear labelling avoids confusion and makes your brand appear more honest.
2. Set boundaries. Use bots to handle repetitive or routine jobs, but keep human judgment in the loop for complex or sensitive issues.
3. Protect your customer. Make sure bot activity complies with privacy, legal, and ethical requirements. This means protecting customer data and preventing misuse.
4. Govern responsibly. Put bot management tools in place to monitor behaviour and stop bad actors. Salesforce Shield 2.0, for example, helps businesses keep security and compliance in check.

Our AI agents help businesses use bots responsibly from day one. Agentforce is an AI-powered agent that can handle routine tasks like answering customer questions or processing requests.

It’s also built with safeguards to keep data secure, so you can automate more of your work while still protecting your customers and keeping their trust.

Now that you know how to use bots responsibly, let's take a look at how to employ them to help your business run more efficiently.

Chatbots and AI-powered support are one of the most visible examples of how bots can support businesses. These days, customers expect instant help, and bots can meet that demand by resolving routine queries 24/7.

Since introducing Agentforce on our own help site , it now resolves 80% of customer enquiries without human input, cutting wait times from days to seconds.

For companies like Fisher & Paykel, 65% of routine cases are now projected to be handled through self-service, giving service teams more time to focus on more complex queries.

In online retail, bots are often used to recommend products, check stock levels, and update pricing in real time. You can think of them like digital shop assistants that keep your shelves stocked and organised while assisting customers with the shopping experience.

They commonly do this by offering recommendations and keeping track of inventory. Having bots monitoring stock levels in real time helps businesses avoid costly stock-outs that can lead to lost sales and disappointed customers.

Behind the scenes, you can use bots to streamline your workflows by taking over repetitive tasks like data entry, scheduling, and reporting.

For example, banks use bots to process thousands of routine transactions and compliance checks automatically. In healthcare, bots can help with patient intake forms or insurance claims, reducing delays and errors. Once these tasks are completed by bots, humans can check them over in a fraction of the time it would take to do the work manually.

Using social listening, bots can track brand mentions and customer sentiment across platforms, while engagement bots respond to common questions or prompt customers to take the next step.

These tools give businesses real-time insights into what their audience is saying and doing. You can then use these findings to inform sales conversations and marketing campaigns.

So now that you’ve learnt about the helpful ways bots can increase efficiency, let’s explore how you can implement them in your business.

Start with one simple task a bot can handle, like password resets or order updates. Decide how you’ll measure success – for example, time saved, fewer support tickets, or happier customers. When deciding what to first use your bot for, try to get into the mindset of your customers and consider what will be genuinely valuable to them.

Decide if you’re going to use a no-code bot in your CRM or build something in-house. You’ll want to consider security, permissions, audit logs, and how and when you’ll get your bot to hand over to a human.

If you use Salesforce’s Service Cloud and Agentforce, you’ll get instant guardrails and CRM access.

Plan out how a conversation with your bot should go, starting with the most common questions people ask, and map the best path to get them an answer quickly. Think about what happens if the bot doesn’t understand. For example, should the bot ask a clarifying question, or should it hand over to a human?

Connect your CRM, knowledge base, support tickets, and payments, where relevant. This gives your bots more information to provide better answers. Make sure to log every action and tag conversations so you can generate reports on topics, resolution, and handoffs.

Start with an internal test before you go live. Get your staff to try and ‘break’ the bot by asking unusual or complicated questions, as this will highlight any weaknesses you can fix. Once your bot is live, remember to regularly review transcripts to see where conversations fall short, and test different versions of prompts or responses to find what works best.

Modern bots with the power of AI have moved from scripted responders to autonomous AI agents that can reason and coordinate tasks across systems. Analysts expect this shift to start showing up more and more inside mainstream software. In fact, Gartner projects that, by 2028, about one-third of enterprise software will include agentic AI.

Day to day, customers will come to expect more personalised service. As competitors adopt AI agents that can understand context, pull in data, and complete multi-step tasks, bots will shift from being a novelty to a standard part of the customer experience.

With these shifts also comes a bigger focus on governance. One example of this in action can be seen from the EU AI Act , which is setting risk-based rules and transparency duties (for example, telling users when they’re interacting with AI), which will shape how customer-facing bots and agents are used.

Ultimately, bots are going to become a normal part of customer-to-company interactions; as automation increases, experts are going to be focused on tighter regulations to reduce harm. To get ahead of this, ensure you’re using private and secure AI like Agentforce from the very beginning.