Glossary

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AI Companion(also: Chatbot Companion, AI Companionship)

An AI companion is an artificial-intelligence system - typically a text, voice or avatar-based chatbot built on a large language model - explicitly designed to offer users a sense of social presence, intimacy or relational support, marketed as a friend, confidant, mentor or…

Clarifying Question(also: Clarifying Questions, Counter-Question)

A clarifying question is a follow-up query posed by a system or interlocutor to resolve ambiguity, fill missing context, or confirm intent before acting on a user's request. In conversational interfaces, clarifying questions are a core mechanism of mixed-initiative interaction:…

Griefbot(also: Deadbot)

A griefbot (sometimes 'deadbot') is an AI chatbot trained on the written, voice or video communications of a deceased person, intended to let bereaved loved ones continue a simulated dialogue with them. Griefbots are a specific application of continuing-bonds practice and raise…

Proactive Prompt(also: Proactive Cue)

In voice-interface and conversational-agent design, a system-initiated utterance or visual cue that surfaces a suggestion, reminder, or next step without the user first asking. Examples include suggesting the weather at a user's usual wake-up time, reminding someone to take…

Repair Mechanism(also: Conversational Repair)

In conversational interface design, a feature that helps the user and the system recover from misrecognition, ambiguity, or misunderstanding — for example, clarification prompts ("Did you mean the [X] cricket match?"), visible candidate lists, or "try again" affordances that…

Replika

Replika is a commercial AI companion app, launched by Luka Inc. in 2017, that offers users a customisable digital avatar designed to 'develop its own personality' through conversational interaction. Users can shape the avatar's appearance, relationship type (friend, mentor,…

Supportive Empathy

A therapeutic conversational stance in which a listener responds to another person's feelings with affirmation, validation, and gentle encouragement rather than problem-solving or interpretation. In music-therapy practice supportive empathy is often paired with a 'holding'…

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