Conversational AI describes technology that understands natural language and responds in a human-like, back-and-forth way, rather than requiring customers to select from fixed menu options or match an exact phrase.
Conversational AI is the broader category that both chatbots and AI agents sit inside. What separates them is what happens after the conversation:conversational AI focused purely on dialogue can hold a natural back-and-forth without necessarily being able to act on anything, while agentic AI takes the same natural language understanding and pairs it with the ability to actually complete a task, like processing a refund or updating an order, rather than just discussing it.
Teams typically evaluate conversational AI on understanding accuracy(did it correctly interpret what the customer meant), resolution rate (did it actually solve the issue), and customer satisfaction with the interaction specifically, since a technically accurate response that still leaves the customer without an answer isn't a success by any practical measure.
Mim, Dixa's AI agent, is built on conversational AI but goes a step further into agentic AI, understanding a request and then taking the action needed to resolve it directly, rather than just holding a natural conversation about it.