Users ignore site AI chatbots. Nielsen Norman Group research finds that participants rarely used them, often did not notice them at all, and when they did engage, could not identify what value the chatbot offered beyond existing search bars, filters, or general-purpose tools like ChatGPT.
The core problem is positioning. These chatbots occupy an undefined space between a search input and a human sales rep, and neither users nor the companies deploying them can articulate a clear job for them to do. That ambiguity is not a UX polish problem. It is a product definition failure.
The full article is worth reading for what it reveals about how users mentally categorize these tools and why that categorization consistently works against engagement. The question it forces is the right one: what can your chatbot do that nothing else on your site already does?
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