What's different in Amazon's bot implementation? And is it accessible to smaller companies somehow?
For me, it was mostly multiple choice questions that ended with, "your order has been refunded, you may keep or dispose of the item".
That jibes totally with my experience as well. Like you said "it works because it actually has the power/permissions to solve your problem." It's not necessarily more intelligent but it can do useful things nonetheless.
https://cloud.google.com/dialogflow
^ But why would anyone go through all that for a vanity chatbox on a landing page? Stuff like that is for, you know, a real chatbot.