Artificial Intelligence (AI) confers on organisations that use it some level of competitive edge over others; however, small and medium-scale enterprises (SMEs) in Africa still struggle to integrate it into their operations. This study, therefore, sought to examine how the marketing performance of SMEs can be optimised through Al adoption as the broad objective. Specifically, the study examined the relationship between ChatBot and customer engagement of SMEs in the South East, Nigeria. The study adopted a survey research design. The study's population was 11,231 registered SMEs across the 5 states in the region. A sample size of 371 was arrived at by applying the Krejcie and Morgan 1970 statistical formula. The instrument for data collection was a Likert scale-structured questionnaire, which was subjected to both validity and reliability tests. Data was analysed using both descriptive and inferential statistics, and the hypothesis formulated was tested at a 5% significance level. From the result, it showed that ChatBot has a statistically significant relationship with customer engagement among SMEs in South East, Nigeria (R = 0.947) R-Square = 0.898; F-value = 2777.594; P-value = 0.000 .05 significant level The study, therefore, concluded that the marketing performance of small businesses can indeed be optimised through Al deployments. Sequel to the findings of the study, it was recommended that small businesses in the studied areas need to incrementally adapt and adopt new and improved ways of responding to customers, in such a way as to make their responses swift, and all-day-round, as this will captivate the attention of the customers and make them more engaged.