From a free chat bubble in Scottsdale to a public company in New York and a $62.5 million bet out of Kuala Lumpur, four companies are chasing the same job - answer the customer - and AI is quietly rewriting who does the answering.

Sprinklr, ProProfs, WATI and Crisp all sell conversations with customers. They have almost nothing else in common - and that tells you where support software is heading.

Dialpad, 8x8, Sprinklr, Broadvoice, Squaretalk, CloudTalk, Convoso and UJET all promise to run your phone lines with artificial intelligence. Here is what actually separates them once the demo ends.