What percentage of website chat conversations happen outside business hours?

About 39% of website chat conversations start outside business hours. In Chatonbo's study of 5,470 real conversations on 246 live AI assistants (June 13 to September 11, 2026), 39% began outside 09:00 to 17:59 in the visitor's local time, and 47.7% of all chats happened on a phone. The month-by-month figure moves around that baseline (48.8% in September 2026, when more stores were live in evening-heavy categories) and is published every month in the Chatonbo Chat Index. The practical point: roughly four in ten questions arrive when nobody is at the desk, which is the case for an assistant that answers on its own. Study and method: chatonbo.com/research/what-shoppers-ask-ai-chat-2026. Monthly series: chatonbo.com/research/chat-index.

Updated October 12, 2026