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Basic AI Powered Chatbot with PHP

February 27, 2025

Chatbots are revolutionizing customer service, automation, and user engagement. With AI, you can create an intelligent chatbot that understands user queries and responds dynamically.

Prerequisites

Before getting started, ensure you have:

  • A basic understanding of PHP
  • A web server
  • An AI API like OpenAI’s GPT
  • Composer

Setting Up Your PHP Project

Start by creating a new directory for your chatbot project:

mkdir php-chatbot
cd php-chatbot

Initialize a new PHP project:

composer init

Choosing an AI API

For AI-powered responses, you can use APIs like:

OpenAI API Setup

  1. Sign up on OpenAI
  2. Get your API key from the OpenAI dashboard
  3. Install Guzzle for making API requests:
composer require guzzlehttp/guzzle

Writing the PHP Chatbot Logic

Create a file chatbot.php and add the following:

<?php
require 'vendor/autoload.php';
use GuzzleHttp\Client;

class Chatbot {
    private $apiKey;
    private $client;
    
    public function __construct($apiKey) {
        $this->apiKey = $apiKey;
        $this->client = new Client();
    }
    
    public function ask($message) {
        $response = $this->client->post('https://api.openai.com/v1/chat/completions', [
            'headers' => [
                'Authorization' => 'Bearer ' . $this->apiKey,
                'Content-Type'  => 'application/json',
            ],
            'json' => [
                'model' => 'gpt-4',
                'messages' => [['role' => 'user', 'content' => $message]],
                'max_tokens' => 150
            ]
        ]);
        
        $data = json_decode($response->getBody(), true);
        return $data['choices'][0]['message']['content'] ?? 'I could not process that.';
    }
}

$chatbot = new Chatbot('your-openai-api-key');
echo $chatbot->ask('How are you ?');

Creating a Simple Chat UI

Create an index.php file for a simple chat interface:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>AI Chatbot</title>
</head>
<body>
    <h2>Chat with AI</h2>
    <form method="post">
        <input type="text" name="message" required>
        <button type="submit">Send</button>
    </form>
    <p><strong>Response:</strong> 
        <?php
        if ($_SERVER['REQUEST_METHOD'] === 'POST' && !empty($_POST['message'])) {
            require 'chatbot.php';
            $chatbot = new Chatbot('your-openai-api-key');
            echo $chatbot->ask($_POST['message']);
        }
        ?>
    </p>
</body>
</html>

Running Your Chatbot

  • Place your files in the web server directory (e.g., htdocs/php-chatbot/ for XAMPP)
  • Start the server and visit http://localhost/php-chatbot/index.php
  • Type a message and get AI-powered responses!