In some cases, like my request for headache tips, bots end their messages with prodding follow-up questions. In others, they proactively message users to coax them into conversation: After clicking through the profiles of 20 AI bots on Instagram, all of them DM’ed me first. When I ditched ChatGPT and asked Google’s Gemini for headache help, it offered a long list of advice, then paused without asking any follow-ups. That’s not to say that these other bots never respond with chatbait. I reached out to OpenAI, Google, and Anthropic about the rise of chatbait.