A conversational agent is an AI system that uses natural language to interact with people, asking questions, collecting information, or guiding a user through a task. In cyber security, these systems often appear as chatbots, virtual assistants, or help-desk tools that can gather incident details, triage tickets, or walk users through security steps.
The same interface can also be abused. Attackers use conversational agents for social engineering, impersonating support staff, persuading victims to reveal credentials, or automating phishing conversations at scale. Because they can respond quickly and sound natural, they may lower a target’s suspicion. Defenders should treat chat-based systems as sensitive front ends: verify identity, limit what data they can access, log interactions, and watch for prompt injection or other attempts to manipulate the agent into leaking internal information.