**Abstract**

Chatbots, defined as artificial intelligence program able to simulate processes of human conversation *via* auditory or textual methods, are deployed by firms to automate customer service. In recent years, chatbots have received tremendous attention from scholars in numerous fields including e-health, e-learning, and e-commerce over many sectors. However, the technology developments and applications specifically in the primary healthcare domain are still insufficiently explored. The principal purpose of the study is to provide a broad review of the current technology developments and applications in primary healthcare domain and future directions in the research. First, we describe features of chatbots considering the healthcare domain. Next, we provide a classification of technology developments and applications in primary healthcare with a focus on recent advances. Then, we present a density map of applications in the primary healthcare domain. Furthermore, we introduce future directions in the core research technology. We expect this study to serve as a comprehensive resource for researchers in healthcare domain.

**Keywords:** artificial intelligence, chatbot, technology development, primary healthcare, ChatGPT
