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Although the bot will guide users in the right direction and answer frequently asked questions, it won't connect to a live agent -- a problem reported by many frustrated residents.
More than 1 million New Jersey residents filed for unemployment since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.
As of May 2, $1.9 billion had been paid out to more than 700,000 workers, the department said. Another 300,000 were waiting for their benefits to be approved Thursday.
Getting a person on the phone has proven nearly impossible for many residents saying they're given automated responses over and over again.
Many reported having problems only a person can fix, including Vanessa Crosby, a substitute teacher from Hackensack. Crosby was told she had used up all of her claims from when she filed for unemployment pre-COVID-19.
The site asked Crosby for her latest pay stub when she appealed. The stub was from February, she said, but the site recognized her as a teacher still earning an income from home. All she got for weeks were the same automated emails and phone recordings, telling her the system was overwhelmed and her inquiry was pending.
The labor department's new chat feature might not be able to help people like Crosby, as it points users in the right direction and, at best, simulates a "human text response to real-time responses to the 20 most frequently asked unemployment questions," the department said in a release.
Visit myunemployment.nj.gov/ to try the tool.
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