Abstract: [Purpose/Significance] With the continuous advancement of the government's digital transformation, chatbot technology has been increasingly adopted by public sectors and applied in various governance scenarios. This study seeks to comb and analyze the research status to understand the application trend of emerging technologies and provide research reference for further exploration. [Design/Methodology] Literature research is first conducted to collect the current research articles related to the application of chatbots in the public sector published before October 6, 2022 from databases of Web of Science, CNKI, Google Scholar PKU Scholar and other websites.Inductive method is then used to summarize current research from four aspects: definition and classification, value and limit, main application scenarios, influencing factors, user trust and evaluation. [Findings/Conclusion] For the public sector, chatbots have both value in general and specific applications, but there are limitations in technology and application. The related application scenarios mainly focus on public information service and interaction between government and people, open government data  and data management, public emergency management. The application of chatbots and users' trust in chatbots are affected by many external factors such as environment, organization, technology and so on. The corresponding evaluation frameworks and indicators also involve efficiency, effectiveness, satisfaction and other aspects. [Originality/Value] This paper expounds the research progress of chatbots application in public sector from multiple dimensions, analyzes the key points and shortcomings of the research, and puts forward future research directions, so as to provide reference for subsequent research.

Key words: Chatbot, Intelligent question&, answering robot, Public sector, Digital government, Intelligentialize