Looking for a Drift Alternative? Meet the Smarter, Safer Choice

If you’ve explored conversational marketing tools or live chat platforms over the past few years, you’ve probably come across Drift.

Drift positioned itself as a pioneer in conversational sales - helping businesses capture leads and drive online sales with chatbots and real-time messaging.

But in 2025, many sales and support teams are debating whether it's still the best solution for them.

A recent security breach with Salesloft’s Drift integration has resulted in the Drift app being temporarily taken offline and removed from Salesforce’s AppExchange.

In addition to growing security concerns, other issues like high costs, limited customer support, and a lack of flexibility and AI innovation mean that Drift is no longer an obvious choice for many businesses.

So if you're currently exploring safer, smarter alternatives to Drift, you're not alone.

And you're not short on options.

In this guide, we'll delve into why so many organisations are searching for a Drift alternative - and why other solutions like Talkative might be a better option.

TL;DR:

Drift helped pioneer conversational marketing. But its high costs, limited flexibility, and a narrow focus on sales use cases have many businesses exploring Drift alternatives - especially following recent security breaches.

In 2025, organisations are seeking more secure, scalable platforms that go beyond lead capture to support intelligent AI automation and better customer experiences. This article explores why Drift may no longer be the right fit - and why Talkative is one of the best Drift alternatives.

What is Drift?

Drift is a conversational marketing platform that helps businesses connect with website visitors through live chat, chatbots, and automated messaging.

It’s designed to accelerate sales conversations, capture leads, and enable real-time customer engagement.

Known for its emphasis on conversational sales and account-based marketing (ABM), Drift aims to personalise the customer journey through tools like chat routing and lead qualification.

While Drift has been a leading name in live chat solutions, it's primarily geared towards marketing teams and sales reps.

For businesses seeking advanced AI automation, stronger customer support features, and greater scalability, the platform can feel restrictive - especially for large and medium businesses or those scaling fast.

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Why are businesses looking for an alternative to Drift in 2025?

Drift might have been a leader in conversational marketing, but it’s no longer the obvious choice for customer support teams, marketing teams, or sales reps - especially in 2025.

Here’s why many businesses are exploring other Drift alternatives.

1. Security concerns are top of mind

Following the recent OAuth security breach that impacted Drift integrations, concerns around data protection and platform trust have intensified.

For organisations handling sensitive customer data, choosing a secure and privacy-compliant solution is non-negotiable.

Mid-sized and enterprise businesses need peace of mind - and that means switching to a provider with a stronger focus on infrastructure resilience, privacy compliance, and robust permissions.

2. Limited support for advanced AI use cases

Drift’s chatbots are primarily built for lead capture and basic automation.

If your business is looking to go beyond automated messages and into true AI-powered customer service, Drift falls short.

Modern, AI-first platforms are capable of delivering intelligent, knowledge base-driven responses and personalized customer interactions across voice and chat channels.

They also support technoliges and capabilities like AI agent assist, generative AI, natural language understanding, and advanced analytics for continuous improvement.

Drift’s current tooling isn’t designed for that level of depth or flexibility.

3. Complexity and cost compared to Drift's competitors

Drift’s service packages often require enterprise-level budgets, but without the accompanying ease of use or scalability.

This means small businesses and medium-sized businesses face a high barrier to entry.

The platform can also be complex to configure if you want to offer multiple support channels or serve global audiences.

And when sales teams or support teams grow, the per-seat pricing model becomes difficult to justify - especially when AI usage-based pricing is becoming more common (and more scalable) elsewhere.

4. Poor support for hybrid service and sales use cases

Drift focuses heavily on conversational sales, which is great for B2B pipeline acceleration.

But not all businesses want to centre their chatbot strategy on sales - many are looking to automate customer inquiries, reduce agent workloads, and increase customer satisfaction.

If your team is trying to improve customer support as well as sales, Drift’s focus can feel one-sided.

There’s limited flexibility to tailor the platform to your business’s specific needs - especially compared to platforms with broader channel support and custom AI configuration.

Why is Talkative one of the best Drift alternatives

For businesses and contact centres seeking a comprehensive solution that’s both secure and AI-first, Talkative is one of the best Drift alternatives.

Unlike other Drift competitors, Talkative offers an omnichannel, knowledge base-driven platform that enhances the entire customer journey - not just lead capture.

Here’s what makes Talkative a powerful alternative to Drift.

1. Intelligent AI built on your knowledge base

While many platforms claim to use artificial intelligence, it's often just automation rebranded as AI.

With Talkative, our AI solutions are genuinely intelligent, powered by technologies such as generative AI, Large Language Models (LLMs), and natural language understanding.

What sets Talkative AI apart is that it doesn't just rely on AI models - it's also built on your company's knowledge base.

This gives the AI a deep understanding of your business, enabling it to answer countless customer queries about your brand, policies, products, and services.

It also means every AI response is grounded in information that is accurate, up-to-date, and company-approved.

2. Voice, live chat, chatbots, and more

Drift’s focus is chat-first. Talkative goes further.

Talkative combines live chat, AI chatbots, voice AI (i.e. voicebots for phone support), video chat, and messaging into a single, seamless solution.

The platform also supports multilingual support in a variety of languages for chat/messaging, voicebot, and chatbot interactions.

This omnichannel approach enables support and sales teams to meet customers wherever they are, via their channel and language of choice.

It’s an ideal fit for mid-size and larger businesses looking to streamline communication and offer a frictionless customer experience across the board.

3. AI assistance for agents

Talkative isn’t just about customer-facing AI automation. It also empowers your human support agents with an AI Copilot suite.

AI Copilot supports and assists human agents during live customer conversations with features like:

• Real-time response suggestions (based on the interaction context and your knowledge base)
• An internal AI assistant, "Navi", who can answer agent questions, instantly retrieve information from your knowledge base, and recommend next-step actions
• AI autocomplete and re-phrases (for live chat messages)
• Seamless hand-offs from AI to human support with full context included (so the customer never has to repeat themselves)

The result? Faster responses and resolutions, increased customer satisfaction, higher-quality support, and a lighter load for your frontline teams.

4. AI analytics & reporting for supervisors

Supporting agents isn't the only thing Talkative AI does behind the scenes - it also generates actionable insights for supervisors and managers.

With advanced AI analytics and reporting, Talkative gives you visibility into everything from user behavior and topic trends, to AI containment rates, agent performance, CSAT and sentiment.

Importantly, you can also run reports that'll mine customer interactions to identify gaps in your knowledge base content.

This allows you to expand your knowledge base and continuously improve AI performance over time.

5. Seamless integrations

Talkative is built to integrate seamlessly with your existing tech stack - whether that’s your CRM software, contact centre systems, messaging channels, or other tools.

Current integrations include:

• Mitel
• Salesforce
• Google Analytics
• Calendly
• SMS/MMS, Facebook Messenger, WhatsApp

This means you can implement Talkative without disrupting or overhauling your existing set-up.

6. Exceptional customer support & onboarding

One of the biggest frustrations with Drift is its lack of customer support and hands-on onboarding.

At Talkative, we do things differently.

From the moment you get started, you’ll be supported by a dedicated Customer Success Manager who understands your business's specific needs and goals.

Whether you're a mid-size business looking to scale or an enterprise with complex requirements, our team works closely with you to ensure a smooth rollout and long-term success.

That means:

• Tailored onboarding plans designed around your tech stack and internal workflows
• Hands-on configuration support for your AI voicebots and chatbots, chat window customisation, integrations, and more
• Regular check-ins and success reviews to align platform usage with your KPIs
• Fast, friendly responses from our expert support team

It’s proactive support that scales with you - not a one-size-fits-all experience.

7. Enterprise-grade data security & compliance

Finally - and perhaps most importantly in light of Drift's recent breach - Talkative is built for security-first organisations.

From compliance with GDPR and PCI to end-to-end encryption, multi-factor authentication, sensitive information masking, and real-time monitoring, Talkative meets the highest standards for safeguarding customer data.

Talkative also gives you full control over where and how your data is stored, including the ability to choose regional AWS hosting for maximum data sovereignty.

When it comes to AI security, Talkative is compliant with the EU AI Act and takes a closed-loop approach. Your AI assistant only draws from your approved knowledge base, never chat logs or third-party data.

That means accurate responses, no hallucinations, and no unauthorised learning from your customer interactions.

Want to prevent rogue behaviour? You can even block nuisance users with a click or configure AI guardrails to control tone, style, and escalation rules.

Combined with custom AI prompts, optional tool access, and LLM choice flexibility, it’s a level of control many providers can’t match.

In a world where security vulnerabilities can damage brand trust, Talkative offers the stability, reliability, and transparency that customer support teams need to scale with confidence.

Bottom line: Talkative helps you stay secure, compliant, protected, and in complete control of your data and AI workflows.

Talkative vs. Drift: Key features comparison

Let’s take a closer look at how Talkative stacks up against Drift across the key features and capabilities that matter most.

The takeaway

As AI reshapes the customer experience, not all platforms are evolving equally.

Drift helped define the era of conversational marketing - but for many businesses today, it’s no longer the right fit.

Whether it’s the steep costs, limited customer support, or recent security concerns, there’s a growing need for a more secure, intelligent, and scalable alternative to Drift.

That’s where Talkative comes in.

We’re not just another chat tool. We’re a complete, AI-first customer service solution.

From voice AI and AI chatbots to live chat, messaging, video, and more, Talkative helps you improve efficiency and reduce manual workloads without sacrificing customer satisfaction.

All with enterprise-grade security, exceptional onboarding, and the flexibility to meet your business’s specific needs.

Want to learn more?

Get in touch or book a demo with us today.