Most of these companies operate as application service providers: For a set fee, they host the software that provides answers when a Web site visitor asks a question. New York–based AskIt.com matches customer queries to a stored bank of responses to frequently asked questions. It routes unmatched questions to experts for response by e-mail. ALife-RoboShop, from Boston-based Artificial Life, offers a 3D animated character that appears on a Web site, blinking and smiling, and acts as a virtual storekeeper. LivePerson, Human Click, and others let customers chat via text with human customer service reps. iPhrase Technologies of Cambridge, Massachusetts, offers its own version of a brain that makes it easier for shoppers to extract Web site content by typing plain English questions.

The common goal of these services is to reduce customer-support and call-center costs. Forrester Research estimates that it costs $33 for a company to handle a phone call, but just under $10 per session for interactive live chat with a human assistant. Soliloquy says its experts can lower a company's cost to just 7 cents per customer session.

But there's more potential to this technology than reducing customer-support costs. The aim is to turn these valuable moments of customer contact into profit. Boosting conversion rates—the number of shoppers who click through and buy instead of ditching their shopping carts—is part of that proposition. And if you can really know what a shopper wants and make him or her happy with the experience, you create a special bond between e-tailer and customer—and new business opportunities. For example:

Online Brain: You mentioned that you want a computer to set up an accounting system. We have negotiated a special arrangement for our customers with Acme Accounting Software . . . click here to learn more.