They're also superior (and less stressful) for a certain type of person - for example, my mother appears to be slowing down a bit, mentally, as she gets older, and a chat bot would be a lot easier for her to navigate over a phone menu, because she has time to read it and think about it without feeling pressured to key in a response before the phone menu times out. And she doesn't have to worry about forgetting what the phone menu said because, hey, it's all on screen.

Except, the phone tree isn't what's on the web. So really you're putting texting against a webpage or an app, which will always deliver a better ux because they're unconstrained.